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THE 



VERMONT SETTLERS 



AND THE 



NEflORKLANOSPEGULATOHS 



BY 



R^C. BENTON. 



MINNEAPOLIS : 
HOUSEKEEPER PRESS, 

1894. 



Distributed with Compliments 
OF THE Author. 



COnSTTEIsTTS. 



Page. 
CHAPTER I. 

Early Military Outposts and Explorations - 5 

CHAPTER II. 

New Hampshire Charters - - - - 10 

CHAPTER III. 

New York Land Grants and the Boundary 

Question - - - - - 26 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Action of the Priv y Council on the Ap- 
plication OF THE Settlers - - 38 

CHAPTER V. 

Ejectment Suits - - - - 50 

CHAPTER VI. 

Comments on the Law - - - 61 

CHAPTER VII. 

Attempts to Enforce Judgments, and Further 

Grants by New York Governors - - 86 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Resistance of Settlers, — A Revolution - 100 



CONTKNTS. 

Page. 
CHAPTER IX. 

Settlements on the East Side of the Mount- 
ains - - - - - lis 

CHAPTER X. 

Organization of State Govekn.ments - 135 

CHAPTER XI. 

Land Grants bv Vermont - - - 142 

CHAPTER XII. 

Application of Vermont to Congress - - 146 

CHAPTER XIII. 

An Incident - - - - 159 

CHAPTER XIV. 

An Independent Sovereignty - - 166 

CHAPTER XV. 

Final Settlement with New York - - 172 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Conclusion - - - - - 183 



THE 
VEKMONT SETTLERS 

A^T> THE 

I^EW YOEK LAIsTD SPECULATORS. 



CHAPTER 1. 

EAKLY MILITARY OUTPOSTS AND EXPLORATIONS. 

The settlement of the territory now known as the 
state of Vermont was for a long time delayed by the 
continuance of the wars between France and England 
which followed the English Revolution of 1688. Until 
the close of the French and Indian Wars and the con- 
quest of Canada in 1760, most of that territory was the 
pathway of the hostiles. The intervals of peace were 
not long enough to permit any permanent settlements 
beyond the protection of forts and garrisons. It is 
true that the settlements within the province of Massa- 
chusetts had extended up the valley of the Connecticut 
river, so that as early as 1721: a block house or fort was 
constructed near what is now the village of Brattleboro. 
Within a few years afterwards these outposts had been 
extended as far north as Number Four, now known as 



6 Vekmoxt Settlers axd 

Charlestown, New Hampshire ; and around these block 
houses a few settlers had ventured. But these were 
simply military outposts or the advance guard of the 
settlements in Massachusetts. 

There had been also early occupation by the French 
of grounds near Lake Champlain. The resetirches of 
Mr. David Read, found in volumes one and two of 
Miss Heraen way's Vermont Gazetteer, have shown 
pretty clearly that a French fort was built on I>le La 
Motte as early as 1666. At some considerable time 
previous to the overthrow of the French power, other 
French settlements were made on Windmill Point in 
Alburg, on the Missisquoi river in S wanton, in Col- 
chester near the mouths of the Lamoille and Winooski 
rivers, and on Chimney Point in Addison. Judge 
Strong, the historian of Addison, has also shown that- 
in 1690 a scouting party under the command of a Capt. 
D' Narm, sent out by the Governor of New York, built 
what was called a stone fort on Chimney Point, but it 
does not appear that there was at that time anything 
like a permanent settlement there. All these were, 
however, only appendages of the outposts made neces- 
sary by the military occupation of the country. It is 
safe to say that there was no settlement in what is now 
Vermont, independent of its military occupation, until 
after 1760. 

The settlement of the new territory was especially 
promoted by an occurrence near the close of that war. 
It will be remembered that in September, 1759, at the 
very time when Wolfe was making his final assault on 
Quebec, Major Rogers started from Crown Point for a 
raid on the St. Francis Indians in Canada. He reached 
their village on the 5th of October and inflicted upon 



New York Laxd Speculators. 7 

them the most serious punishment known in the indian 
wars of this country. In fact, he destroyed the 
power of those indians and completely took away 
their courage. Although in 1752, during the short 
interval of peace between the two last French and 
Indian wars, they had sent messengers to the post at 
Number Four, forbidding in arrogant terms the estab- 
lishment of any English settlements on the great 
meadows at Newbury and Haverhill, nevertheless, 
when the upper Connecticut valley was settled some 
ten years later, these St. Francis indians were found to 
be the most peaceable and subdued indian tribes in any 
of the American settlements. 

The progress of the French and Indian wars gave 
large opportunity for the people of New England to 
get acquainted with this unexplored territory. In the 
preceding wars there had been a few scouting parties 
across some parts of the state, and some captives had 
been dragged through its valleys, but there had been 
no considerable explorations of that territory. Capt. 
John Stark had in 1752 been taken prisoner by the 
indians in northern New Hampshire, and had been 
taken through the upper valley of the Connecticut, 
which he described as an unknown country. After his 
release, two years later, he conducted an exploring 
party up the valley as far as Lancaster. 

At the commencement of the war in 1755 troops 
from New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in order to 
reach Lake George and Ticonderoga, were obliged to 
go around by way of Albany ; but a party of Massa- 
chusetts soldiers, who had been at Lake George, in 
making a short cut off for their homes, found the land 
that they afterwards settled as the Town of Bennington. 



8 Vermont Settlers axd 

During the next two or three campaigns, while the 
active hostilities were confined within the vicinity of 
Lake George and Ticonderoga, the scouting parties of 
the colonists, chief among which were Major Rogers 
with his rangers, — John Stark and others, — had made 
pretty thorough exploration of the whole of the present 
state, as well as of a portion of Canada. 

It was, however, the campaign of 1759 that gave 
the best opportunity for the men of New England to 
become acquainted with the unsettled territory of Ver- 
mont. While Wolfe and Montcalm were girding 
themselves for their final struggle at Quebec, the 
English commander in chief. Sir Jeffrey Amherst, 
upon getting possession of Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point in the early summer, halted his army at a safe 
distance from the enemy and began the enormous but 
useless task of constructing a great fortress at Crown 
Point. Before the season closed, he had with him five 
thousand men from Connecticut under General Phin- 
ehas Lyman, and also militia men from Massachusetts 
and Rhode Island. During that season and the next a 
large force of New Hampshire men were engaged in con- 
structing a military road from Number Four to Crown 
Point. These New England men made very exten- 
sive explorations of the valley of Lake Champlain as 
well as of the Connecticut and the intervening streams, 
and when the peace came, there were many of those 
soldiers ready to occupy the fair land they had seen. 

The first of these was Capt. Samuel Robinson, of , 
Hardwick, Massachusetts. He had been the captain of 
a company in one of the Massachusetts regiments in 
the campaigns of Lake George in 1755 and 1756; and 
in going through the wilderness, on his return from 



New York Land Speculatoks. 9 

one of these campaigns, he accidentally came to what 
was afterwards Bennington, where he encamped for the 
night. He was so much pleased with the appearance 
of the country that he determined to make settlement 
there. Accordingly he took an early opportunity to 
ascertain who were the owners of the land he had seen, 
and finding that the land had been granted by Governor 
Wentworth of New Hampshire to some people in 
Portsmouth, he went to Portsmouth, got title to that 
township, and in 1761 he with his neighbors and 
friends, some of whose names are found in the muster 
rolls of his company in the war, started the first per- 
manent settlement in Vermont west of the Green 
Mountains. 



Vermont Settlers and 



CHAPTER II. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE CHARTERS. 

As the title Captain Robinson got was a very material 
feature of the contests that afterwards ensued, it seems 
proper to notice somewhat in detail the authority given 
to Governor Wentworth to give charters to the town- 
ship of Bennington and to other townships in the 
disputed ter^itor3^ 

For some forty or fifty years the provinces of 
Massachusetts and New Hampshire had been united 
undeV one colonial governor, although their govern- 
ments were otherwise distinct. In the year 1737 there 
had come to be a dispute between the councils of those 
provinces in regard to the boundary between them. 
The province of Massachusetts, or Massachusetts Bay 
as it was then termed, had been created by a special 
charter from the crown of England, in which its north- 
ern boundary was described as a line drawn three 
miles north of the Merrimack river at the most 
northerly part of that river, and thence extending west 
to the Pacific Ocean. At the time this charter was 
granted, the Merrimack river had been explored only a 
few miles from its mouth, and, so far as it had been 
explored, its general course was from the west towards 
the east, making a bow or bend to the north and 
thence turning southeast to its mouth in the Atlantic. 



New York Laxd Si'eculators. 11 

Further exploration of the country, however, showed 
that the Merrimack river, for the most of its course, 
was a stream ilovving from the north toward the south ; 
and the M^issachusetts council, by a literal construction 
of the language of that charter, claimed jurisdiction 
and ownership of all the land west of that river to a 
point three miles north of its source. This source was 
the junction of two rivers, in what is now the town of 
Franklin, New Hampshire. A line extended west from 
that point would cross the Connecticut river in the 
vicinity of what is now Windsor and would include that 
part of the present state of Vermont south of Windsor 
and of Rutland. Under this claim, what is now Con- 
cord, the capital of the State of New Hampshire, was 
settled by Massachusetts people, and twenty-eight town- 
ships were granted by Massachusetts under their claim 
of ownership. On the other hand, the New Hampshire 
council insisted that the true meaning of the charter was, 
that the line extending west should start from the most 
northerly portion of that part of the Merrimack river 
which had a general easterly course, and that the dis- 
covery that the actual course of the Merrimack was 
different from that understood at the time of the charter, 
should not be held to give to the province of Massa- 
chusetts land that was not contemplated when its charter 
was granted. This dispute was referred to the privy 
council in England. 

The privy council was an institution of which we 
have no counterpart in this country. In theory its 
functions were simply to advise the king in respect to 
his official actions, and its determinations took the form 
of "orders of the king in council.*' Originally the king 
was sovereign in fact as well as in name and his deter- 



12 Vermont Settlers and 

minations embraced all departments of government, 
legislative and judicial as well as executive. As the de- 
velopment of the english constitution progressed and 
the different departments of government came to exer- 
cise the functions which have now been accorded to 
them, the functions of the privy council became more 
and more limited, but in the early part of the eighteenth 
century and until the discussions arose about the control 
of parliament over the colonies, the privy council had 
very largely the entire direction of colonial matters. 
This direction was both legislative and judicial in its 
character. In so far as the orders of the king in 
council made provision for what it was supposed the 
public good required, these orders were in the nature 
of legislative enactments and were wholly prospective 
in their operation. The privy council had also juris- 
diction to determine certain appeals, — mostly those 
coming from the colonies. Some of these determina- 
tions were judicial in their character and had a retro- 
spective effect; but its judicial functions were never 
very clearly defined. 

Upon this dispute between the provinces of New 
Hampshire and Massachusetts, the privy council might 
have made a construction of the terms of the charter of 
Massachusetts which would have been a judicial de- 
cision of the dispute between the two provinces. What 
the council did do on that question was to set aside the 
boundary named in the charter, and to establish an 
entirely new boundary, giving the province of New 
Hampshire a strip of land about twelve miles wide, — 
more than it had ever claimed. The determination of 
the king in council was to enact that the boundary 
between Massachusetts and New Hampshire should be 



New Yokk Land SPECur.ATOi:s. 13 

a west line starting three miles north of the most 
southerly portion of the Merrimack river, clearly ig- 
noring the express language of the boundary of the 
charter which started that west line from the most 
northerly part of the river. It was then claimed by 
english lawyers that the king, by the advice of the 
privy council, could, in his own discretion, revoke 
any charter that had previously been granted either to 
a colony or a corporation. Since the decision of the 
great Dartmouth College case some seventy years ago, 
it has been the accepted law both in this country and 
in England, that charters that have been acted upon, 
cannot be revoked, even by the sovereign authority ; 
but at the time of the decision in question there was 
little dispute about the full control of the king over the 
boundaries of his colonies. 

This enactment of the king in council was a great 
surprise to the Massachusetts authorities. To say that 
they were angry at the result, would be a very inade- 
quate statement. Believing that their Governor Belcher 
had not fairly represented their interests, they made 
a great clamor for his removal, and got in his place 
Governor Shirley, an english lawyer whose practice 
had not been large enough to prevent his acceptance of 
a colonial office, and whose wealth, if any he had, was 
not sufficient to place him above the temptations which 
usually assailed the colonial governors of those times. 
After he came, there was a good deal of wild talk 
about ignoring the decission of the king in council, but 
the only tangible result of that talk was, that Governor 
Shirley undertook in 1744 to confirm a title claimed by 
a dutchman named Lydius to a tract of about seven 
hundred square miles of land extending along the Otter 



14 Vermont Settleks and 

Creek and for about sixty miles south of its mouth. 
As this tract of land was, for the greater part, entirely 
outside of what was ever claimed to be the boundary of 
Massachusetts, and as Governor Shirley had never any 
jurisdiction nor authority outside of the fixed boundary 
of the province, his confirmation of that title was of 
no avail. 

After this decision of the privy council Benning 
Went worth was appointed governor of the province of 
New Hampshire. His commission authorized him to 
exercise jurisdiction over the province of which one 
boundary was defined in the commission as follows : 

"Bounded on the south side by a similar curved 
line pursuing the course of the Merrimack river at 
three miles distance on the northern side thereof, be- 
ginning at the Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point 
due north of a place called Pawtucket Falls, and by a 
straight line drawn from thence due west across the 
said river until it meeta with our other governments.'''' 

The commission also authorized Governor Went- 
worth, with the advice of his council and under mode- 
rate quit rent to be reserved, to dispose of such lands 
within the province as were under the disposition of 
the king : — 

"Which said grants are to pass and be sealed by 
our seal of New Hampshire, and being entered on 
record by such officer or officers, as you shall appoint 
therein, shall he good and effectual in laiv against us, 
our heirs and successors.''^ 

The order fixing the boundary of the provinces 
provided that the line designated should be surveyed by 
commissioners appointed by each of the provinces. 
Two surveyors were appointed by Governor Wentworth 
for New Hampshire, but the Massachusetts council in a 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 15 

sulky manner refused to have anything to do 
with the survey ; and so the line was run by the two 
New Hampshire surveyors alone. 

There was nothing in the commission to Governor 
Wentwprth, nor in any other of the orders of council, 
that had then defined the western boundary of either 
Massachusetts or New Hampshire. There was an 
understanding that the province of New York extended 
to a line twenty miles east of the Hadson river, so, 
when the surveyors for New Hampshire ran out the 
line between the two provinces, they extended it to a 
point twenty miles distant from the Hudson river. 
Eight years after the making of this survey, Governor 
Wentworth made a charter of the township of Benning- 
ton, in which the boundaries were designated with 
reference to a marked tree on the survey line between 
the provinces, which tree was designated as twenty-four 
miles east from Hudson river, and from that tree run- 
ning six miles at right angles to the province line to a 
certain hemlock tree, and thence the boundaries 
of a township six miles square were designated, having 
its southwest corner four miles west of the hemlock 
tree. This statement of the controversy between 
Massachusetts and New Hampshire has been made in 
detail because it illustrates the effect of the orders of 
the privy council upon the title of the lands affected. 
Although Concord and those twenty-eight townships 
that had been granted by Massachusetts had been trans- 
ferred to New Hampshire, the title to all those lands 
was confirmed in the grantees of the Massachusetts 
colony. 

Starting from the boundaries of this town of Ben- 
nington, Governor Wentworth, in the year of 1761 and 



16 Vermont Settlers and 

the following years, made grants of a large portion of 
the land now known as Vermont, on the west side of 
the mountains. On the east side of the mountains 
what is now the Town of Vernon had been included 
with some land on the other side of the Connecticut 
river in the charter of the Town of Hinsdale, granted 
by the province of Massachusetts before the change in 
the boundary. There was also a tract of land on the 
west side of the Connecticut river extending from Hins- 
dale up the river twelve miles, six and one-half miles 
in width, which had been conveyed to the province 
of Connecticut in exchange for some lands belonging to 
Connecticut that had been encroached upon by Massa- 
chusetts. These "equivalent" lands had been sold by 
Connecticut to a syndicate, of which Colonel Brattle 
and Lieutenant Governor Dummer of Massachusetts 
were leading members. North of that, there had been 
granted by Massachusetts, under the designation of 
Township Number One, a township now known as 
Westminster, as well as other townships in New Hamp- 
shire. After Governor Wentworth had assumed juris- 
diction over these townships granted by Massachusetts, 
he made new grants to the claimants under the Massa- 
chusetts grants. That part of Hinsdale west of the 
Connecticut river afterwards l)ecame the township of 
Vernon. The equivalent lands were divided into three 
townships named Brattleboro, Dummerston and Putney, 
and Township Number One was regranted as the 
township of Westminster. After the close of the war, 
Governor Wentworth continued his grants until the 
number within the present state of Vermont became 
between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and 



I 



New York Land Speculators. 17 

forty. The number most frequently »iven is one 
hundred and thirty-eight. 

His manner of procedure is illustrated by his 
grants on the Connecticut river. He had a survey made 
on the ice in the winter time and marked the trees on 
the bank of the river at intervals of six miles. These 
marks were made the corners of the townships. He 
then had three tiers of townships platted and from 
those plats he made the charters. In this way during the 
year 1761 every township except four on the Connecti- 
cut river was chartered, and before July 1764 more 
than one-half of the present state had been covered by 
these grants. The grantees of these charters were in a 
few instances men who intended to settle upon the lands 
they had so acquired, but were very largely land specu- 
lators, who took only to sell again. In looking over 
the names in the different charters it will be found that 
there were different syndicates, as we would now call 
them. Townships were granted to the Hunts and 
Hubbards and Willards, men prominent in the early 
settlements of Brattleboro and several New Hampshire 
towns. Their acquisitions covered several townships 
on Connecticut river, and some towns as far north as 
what is now Franklin county. Most of the grantees ap- 
pear to have been men from Massachusetts and Connec- 
ticut, but one township, Essex, was conveyed to people 
from New Jersey, and two townships, Ferrisburg and 
Charlotte, were granted to Benjamin Ferris and his as- 
sociates. Ferris appears to have been a Quaker, residing 
in what was termed the "Oblong "in Dutchess couuty. 
New York. Sometimes his residence is stated as the ' 'Ob- 
long" and sometimes as "Quaker Hill." Most of the 



18 Vermont Settlers and 

townships in Chittenden county and some in Washington 
county were granted to Edward Burling and Thomas 
Willis and their associates, from whom were named 
the towns of Burlington and Williston. Nearly all of 
these men are said to have been residents of West- 
chester county, New York, althousjh it appears that 
some of the grantees lived in New Milford, Connecticut; 
and friend Benjamin Ferris appears associated with the 
Westchester people in some of the townships. These 
charters to Burliog and Willis were dated June Tth and 
8th, 1763, at which date the charter business of Gov- 
ernor Wentworth appears to have reached its flood 
tide. 

These charters were of townships as nearly as 
practicable six miles square, each containing something 
over twenty-three thousand acres. They not only 
embraced conveyances or deeds of the land to the 
grantees, but also included grants of corporate fran- 
chises of townships. They had provisions for the 
allotment of the towns between the proprietors, the 
election of officers to conduct the municipal business ; 
and they showed their anglo-saxon origin by provid- 
ing for another institution which is especially dear 
to all yankees, the New England town meeting, — 
that nursery of incipient orators and budding states- 
men. Each of these townships had about sixty propri- 
etors, with his share of three hundred to three hundred 
and fifty acres. In each one of these townships a tract o 
five hundred acres was reserved for the governor. In 
some of the charters that was named as two shares; in 
some of the others this governor's right was described 
as an exception to the grant. There was also one right 
granted to the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 19 

pel, — a London society, — one share for a glebe for the 
church of England, one share for the first settled 
minister of the gospel and one share for 'the benefit of 
schools ; and there was also a quit rent of one shilling 
for every one hundred acres after the first ten years, 
and a reservation of all pine timber fit for masts. 

The principal purpose of making these grants by 
the colonial governors, was to secure to themselves the 
fees. The fees demanded by Governor Wentworth 
were not generally very large. Mr. Hildreth in his 
history states that they were one hundred dollars a 
township. In fact, however, there was no uniform 
price. It was usually supposed that fees fixed by law 
would be uniform, but there was no more uniformity 
in Governor Wentworth's prices than there is. in the 
prices of a Chatham Street store. It appears from the 
history of Rutland that the fee paid for the charter of 
that town was one hundred dollars. The fees paid for 
the charter of Underbill were two hundred and thirty 
dollars and forty-one cents, and for Barnet the expense 
of procuring the charter was two hundred and nineteen 
pounds, or about seven hundred dollars. 

There was not much difiiculty in getting charters, 
provided the applicants would pay the fees. In fact, 
it seemed to be the principal business of all the colonial 
governors to make as much out of their ofiices as 
possible. Governor Wentworth is said to have got 
rich out of the fees he received, and his charges were 
mild in comparison with those of the New York 
governors. Governor Clark, in New York, from 1736 
to 1743 is said to have cleared one hundred thousand 
pounds out of his office, and Governor (Admiral) 
Clinton is said to have made eighty-four thousand 



20 Yeemont Setti-ers and 

pounds in ten years. It was not alone the stamp tax 
and the tax on tea that was oppressive to the colonists. 
Their whole system of colonial government was man- 
aged to satisfy the rapacity of the government, and to 
farther favoritism to those in power ; and as a result, 
that system was miserably ineflScient for any good 
purpose. 

These charters of Governor Wentworth had, many 
of them, as grantees the names of parties living at 
Portsmouth and supposed to be included in the inner 
circle of the governor's friends, or, to use the expressive 
but slang expression of these days, were within the 
"ring," We find the name of Richard Wybird very 
common in the list of grantees, and also Theodore 
Atkinson, who was secretary of the governor's council, 
and occasionally the names of Meshech Weare and 
John Wentworth. It is very probable that these men 
worked themselves in as proprietors of the townships 
as "dead heads." Governor Went worth's reservations 
of five hundred acres to himself, so far as the charters 
granted within what is now the territory of New 
Hampshire were concerned, got him into trouble after 
the expiration of his term. The reservations were 
clearly illegal, because in making these charters or 
conveyances of land, he was acting simply as the agent 
of the king, and nothing is better settled in law than 
that an agent cannot donate to himself any property of 
his principal. There was not much contest in the 
Vermont grants upon this question. Eight of these 
reservations were granted by Governor Golden of New 
York to other parties, which was the most satisfactory 
grant made by any of the New York governors. 
Governor Wentworth did not, however, get much profit 



New York Land Si-eculatoks. 21 

from these reservations as they were mostly lost through 
tax titles and in the disturbances growing out of the 
contest with the New York governors. 

After getting the title to the lands in Bennington, 
Capt. Robinson commenced a settlement. Within four 
years, or by the summer of 1765, the settlement of 
Bennington embraced by actual count sixty-seven fami- 
lies, occupying as many separate farms. These settlers 
had cleared up lands and fitted them for cultivation, 
had constructed houses, such as they were, and out- 
buildings, had made roads and established three schools 
in the town, built a meeting-house, had established a 
church with a settled minister, and had also built 
a saw mill and a grist mill. Of the neighboring 
towns, Arlington was probably next in the state 
of settlement and improvement. There must have 
been within that town forty or fifty heads of families. 
They had both saw and grist mills, built and owned 
by Remember Baker, whose name became prom- 
inent a few years later. These settlers were from 
.Connecticut. Further north, on the Battenkill river, 
was the settlement of Manchester, less advanced ; but 
by 1765 it had become pretty well started towards the 
establish iijent of a town. Next north of that, the 
settlement of Dorset had just begun, and still farther 
north, Danby was starting. These last three towns 
were settled mainly from the eastern part of Dutchess 
county, New York. Among these settlers were some 
quakers from near Nine Partners in Dutchess county. 
New York, which in those days appears to have been 
notable in Quaker history. Danby was afterwards 
spoken of by Ethan Allen as ' ' Quaker Danbe. ' ' The 
only settlement north of Danby was at the falls of the 



22 Veh.mont Settlers anp 

Otter Creek, where is now the City of Vergennes, and 
where some settlers from Salisbury, Connecticut, had 
improved the water power by the construction of a saw 
mill and had taken up some lands in the town of 
Panton. In the town of Shaftsbury, between the towns 
of Bennington and Arlington, were quite a number of 
settlers, and there were probably some in Sunderland 
between Arlington and Manchester. There were also 
some in Pownal. Just how many of these set- 
tlers there were, is pretty hard to determine, as no 
records were kept and the only evidence we have is 
from traditions collected by the town historians in the 
Vermont Gazetteer. It is probable, however, that not 
less than two hundred families had located in Benning- 
ton county on as many farms. 

On the east side of the mountains there were more 
settlers. Fort Dummer was built in 1724 and that 
settlement had existed for more than forty years. In 
Hinsdale there had been two forts built a few years 
later, and the misfortunes of those settlers and their 
captivity by indians were noted in our early school 
books. It does not appear just how many settlers 
there were in Hinsdale, now Vernon, but it is said that 
in 1763 there were three frame dwelling-hoi^ses raised 
in one day. Brattleboro was getting to be a place of 
some importance, and ambitious of being made the seat 
of the new county in contemplation. There had been 
a fort constructed on the great meadows in Putney 
some time previous to 1740, and settlements had been 
made jaear that fort. There were settlements in Kock- 
ingham near what is now Bellows Falls and in the imme- 
diate vicinity of the fort on the other side of the river in 
Walpole built by Colonel Bellows. Dummerston was 



New Youk Land Speculators. 23 

settled in 1752 by Capt. John Kathun ; Chester was 
settled in 1762 ; Halifax and Guilford, a little earlier. 
Pretty soon after the close of the war, settlements had 
been commenced in Springfield, Weathersfield, Windsor, 
Hartland and Hartford. One settler had started in 
Norwich, several in Thetford. There was quite an 
extensive settlement at Newbury in connection with 
another across the river at Haverhill, and there was a 
settlement in the upper Coos at Guildhall. The settle- 
ment at Westminster was probably the largest in the 
eastern part of the present state and had fifty families 
in the summer of 1765. Rockingham had twenty-five 
families in 1765, 

Some years later it seemed to be in the interest of 
New York oflacials to diminish the statement of the 
number of actual settlements in the New Hampshire 
grants, and so in 1771 there were put among the 
colonial records some aflidavits and oflicial statements. 
One affidavit stated that there were not over sixty fam- 
ilies in the whole of the Connecticut river valley on the 
west side of the river. The statement of Mr. Simon 
Stevens, who was a prominent adherent of the New 
^York claims during the whole controversy, fixed the 
number at seventy and claimed that some of those were 
squatters, having no claim of title to the land they 
occupied. Colonel Samuel Wells of Brattleboro, who 
was the agent of the New York claimants in that 
vicinity, stated that in his opinion there were not over 
seventy settlers ; and another statement was that there 
were less than one hundred. None of these statements 
are worthy of any credit. From the actual facts 
appearing not only from accredited historians but the 
colonial records of New York themselves, it is certain 



24 Vermont Settlers and 

that they were so wide of the truth that they could not 
have been honestly made. Qn the twentieth of Jan- 
uary, 1766, there was a return made to the colonial 
office in New York, by name, of over six hundred men 
between the ages of sixteen and sixty, subject to military 
duty, who were residents in the south part of that territo- 
ry east of the mountains and west of the Connecticut 
river. This enumeration must have been made the 
summer before, or in the summer of 1765. The same 
return gives an estimate of the numbers for the north 
part of the same territory at three hundred. A census 
was taken of the inhabitants of that region in 1771, in 
which it was shown that the number of heads of families 
was something more than seventy per cent, of the 
number of enrolled militia. There is no reason for 
supposing that this proportion was materially different 
in 1765. That would give over four hundred heads of 
families or settlers in the summer of 176.5 for what was 
afterwards Cumberland county alone. The estimate 
made in the return of Colonel Chandler for the north 
part of the territory under consideration was undoubt- 
edly too large, and, instead of being half as many as 
in Cumberland county, one-fourth would have been 
about the proportion as shown by the census. It is 
pretty safe to say that in the summer of 1765 there 
were more than five hundred settlers in the valley of the 
Connecticut on the west side of the river. Each of these 
settlers had started a farm, had cleared some land and 
had built a cabin or a house to live in. The extent of 
these improvements varied in proportion to the length 
of time the settlers had been there. Capt. Kathan of 
Dummerston had cleared one hundred and twenty acres 
of land, had built a house and barn, a saw mill and 



New Yokk Land SrECULAxoRS. 25 

works for the manufacture of potash. This is the 
largest improvement of which we have any account. 
It is probable that many of the settlers had no more 
than five or ten acres of clearing and that most of their 
cabins were small. Still, it must huve taken twenty 
days' work to clear an acre of that land, and it was no 
small task to build even a small log cabin. There was 
no little work in the construction of roads. It is pretty 
certain that wherever a farm had been taken np and 
improvements started, the value of the improvements 
was much larger than the original value of the land, 
and that for each of these farms the value of the 
improvements must have been from one hundred dol- 
lars upwards. 



Vekmont Settleijs and 



CHAPTER III. 

NEW YORK LAND GRANTS AND THE BOUNDARY QUESTION. 

The settlement of the new state was brought to a 
sudden check and the grants of townships by Governor 
Went worth were entirely stopped by the publication in 
April, 1765, of the proclamation of the lieutenant gov- 
ernor of New York, announcing the order of the king 
in council, making the Connecticut river the boundary 
between New York and New Hampshire. This order 
had been procured upon the application of Lieutenant 
Governor Colden of New York to the privy council. 
The lieutenant governor, and acting governor of the 
province of New York at that time, was Dr. Cadwalla- 
der Colden, who took a very prominent part in all the 
proceedings out of which grew the difficulties between 
Vermont and New York. 

Born in Scotland in 1688, educated as a physician, 
Dr. Colden came to Philadelphia in 1716, to New York 
City two years later, was in 1720 made surveyor general 
of the province, and two years later a member of the 
governor's council, which position he retained until the 
time of his death in 1776. He was the most prominent 
and active member of the provincial government dnd by 
far the ablest man connected with its administration. 
He was beyond question a man of ability, a scientitic 



New Yokk Land Speculatoks. ^7 

writer and an historian of no small capacity, and thorough- 
ly conversant with the situation and history of the prov- 
ince. He was far superior to the regular governors of 
New York. Indeed, the colonial governors of New 
York with one exception, Gen. Monckton, were not 
men of ability nor integrity. They were usually the 
needy retainers of some of the court favorites, ap- 
pointed to office by reason of the influence of their 
backers, whose chief official ambition was to make the 
most of their official opportunities for their personal 
benefit. 

For many years Dr. Golden was senior member 
and president of the provincial council, and it is said 
that he was the chief adviser of Governor Clinton. 
Between him and Lieutenant Governor De Lancey there 
was a rivalry. The province of New York was con- 
trolled by several large families who owned most of 
the lands under settlement. Although Golden had no 
family connections and but little property when he 
began, he was enabled by his great ability to hold his 
own against his rivals. He seems to have been at 
times in alliance with the Livingston and Clinton fami- 
lies, but not on intimate terms with the Schuylers. In 
a little •volume of the colonial history of New York, 
written by one of the Schuyler family. Dr. Golden 's 
career is depicted in not over friendly terras. He was 
accused by his rivals of taking advantage of his official 
position as surveyor general to get hold of large 
quantities of public lands; but he was able to deny 
these charges and challenge his accusers to their proof. 
If not actually innocent, he was adroit enough to con- 
ceal his holdings. In respect to the Vermont lands it 
is certain that he did not get for himself any very 



28 Vekmoxt Settlkhs and 

large quantity, as did some of the other governors. It 
appears that when the claims of the New York grantees 
were adjusted, his estate held about nine thousand 
acres. That was no more than he could have naturally- 
acquired from the soldiers' grants that were so freely- 
offered in the market, without any suspicion of taking 
advantage of any official position. Indeed, so far as 
the Vermont lands were concerned, the fees he re- 
ceived for the patents he issued as governor were more 
valuable than any profits he could have made from the 
lands themselves. He was a zealous advocate of the 
tory claims of the right of the english government to 
tax the colonies and had written memorials on that sub- 
ject that had attracted the favorable attention of the 
extreme english tories. 

When Lieutenant Governor De Laucey died in 
1761, Dr. Colden succeeded to the government as presi- 
dent of the council. He was then seventy-three years 
of age, but vigorous and daring as a young man. 
When the IS'ew York assembly undertook to pass a law 
by which the judges of the courts should become inde- 
pendent of the crown, he very promptly vetoed the act 
and so left the judges dependent for their offices upon 
the arbitrary caprice of the government. Whem, after 
the death of De Lancey, who was chief justice as well 
as lieutenant governor, it was questioned whether any 
good New York law3^er would accept the position of 
chief justice, he very promptly dispost d of the question 
by importing a chief justice from another province. By 
this devotion to the prerogative of the government as 
against the colonists, he became a favorite of the Earl of 
Halifax, then secretary for the colonies, and was by that 
intluence appointed lieutenant governor. He was four 



New York Land Specxtlators. 



province. 

When Governor Wentworth made the first charter 
in the new territory, that of Bennington, in 1749, he 
wrote a courteous letter to Governor Clinton of New 
York, informing him that he was directed by the king 
to make grants of unimproved lands, that applications 
were made for some townships in the western portion 
of those lands, and, wishing to avoid interfering with 
the government of New York, he inclosed a copy of his 
own commission and desired to be informed "how far 
north of Albany and how many miles east of Hudson 
river to the northward of Massachusetts line his ( Gov- 
ernor Clinton's) government by his Majesty's commis- 
sion extended." To this Clinton replied, very likely by 
the advice of Colden, ' ' that this province is bounded 
eastward by Connecticut river, the letters patent from 
King Charles II to the Duke of York, expressly grant- 
ing all the lands from the west side of the Connecticut 
river to the east side of Delaware Bay." 

The learned author of the history of Cumberland 
county seems to regard this inquiry of Governor Went- 
worth as an admission that Wentworth was doubtful 
of his authority to make any grants beyond the Con- 
necticut' river. Mr. Davis is a good lawyer and his 
opinion of the construction of a writing deserves the 
highest respect. It would seem, however, that Gov- 
ernor Wentworth's inquiry indicates no more than an 
expression of doubt as to the exact location of the line 
between the colonies. This claim on the' part of New 
York was very different from tHe description of the 
boundaries of New York made by Governor Colden, 
while he was surveyor general in 1T38,_ in which he 



30 Vekmont Settleks and 

states that the west line of Massachusetts is the eastern 
boundary line of New York. This is shown b}^ his report 
quoted at length by Governor Hall in the latter's Early 
History of Vermont. It is proper to acknowledge here 
that many of the facts mentioned in this paper are taken 
from Governor Hall's book, and that the whole book 
contains a very thorough and fair representation of all 
the facts shown by the official record. 

Some correspondence ensued between the two gov- 
ernors, and it was agreed to refer the matter to the de- 
cision of the king in council, but no action was taken 
upon this reference, and nothing was done about the 
boundary until 1763. • 

On June 25th, of that year, at the request of Gov- 
ernor Monckton, then about to embark for Great Brit- 
ain, a committee of tive members of the privy council 
of New York, among whom were Judge Horsraanden, 
Oliver De Lancey, and Lord Sterling, made an official 
representation on the subject of the boundaries of the 
province. In respect to the boundary with New Hamp- 
shire their report had this language : 

"The jurisdiction as well as the property of the 
soil yet unappropriated in both governments appertains 
to his Majesty. It depends on the Crown by its own 
authority to fix and assertain (sic) the limits between 
them. 

We are humbly of opinion that it will not be in- 
convenient to either province if his Majesty should be 
pleased to Order that the same line which shall be es- 
tablished as the Devision between them and the prov- 
ince of Massachusetts Bay be continued on the same 
course as far as the most northerly extent of either 
province, with a saving to the inhabitants of New York 
of such lands as are held by grants under the great seal 



New York Land Speculatoks. 31 

of that province eastward of Hudson's river beyond the 
distance of twenty miles, etc. ' ' 

Upon Governor Monckton' a departure for England 
Lieutenant Governor Golden again succeeded to the gov- 
ernment. On the 26th of September he forwarded to 
the board of trade a memorial, claiming that the five 
gentlemen of the provincial council were mistaken in 
regard to their statements, particularly in reference to 
the Massachusetts boundary which was then unsettled. 
In regard to New Hampshire, he stated that that prov- 
ince was bounded on the west by other governments, 
and there was no pretense of its extending west of the 
Connecticut river, which was the eastern boundary of 
New York, and he averred that there was no reason why 
the boundary of either Massachusetts or New Hamp- 
shire should be established at the twenty -mile line. The 
boundary of Massachusetts was established at the twenty- 
mile line ten years later, by the action of commissioners 
appointed by both provinces. Governor Colden's pa- 
per contains this further language : 

• ' ' If all the lands in the province of New York from 
twenty miles of Hudson's river to Connecticut river 
were given up, the Crown would be deprived of a quit 
rent amounting yearly to a large sum, in my opinion, 
greater than the amount of all the quit rents that would 
remain and is now received. 

The New England governments are formed on 
Republican principles, and these principles are zealously 
inculcated on their 3outh in opposition to the principles 
of the constitution of Great Britain. The government 
of New York on the contrary is established as nearly as 
may be after the model of the English constitution. 
Can it, therefore, be good policy to diminish the extent 



32 Vekmon't Settleks and 

of jurisdiction of his Majesty's province of New York 
to extend the power and influence of the others? 

Tiie commerce of the inhabitants on the east side 
of the Hudson river to a great extent eastward, prob- 
ably as far as Connecticut river, is with the towns on 
Hudson's river. It must then be extremely inconvenient 
to them to be under difi^erent laws, different jurisdictions 
and different currencies of money." 

It will be seen that this communication was ad- 
dressed to the legislative discretion of the privy coun- 
cil, because its claims were based on what was alleged 
to be the public good in the determination of the dis- 
puted boundary. It has been stated that Governor 
Golden also sent petitions purporting to be signed by 
large numbers of the residents of the territory in ques- 
tion, in which they ask to be attached to New York for 
the reason that it was more convenient for them to have 
business relations with that province than with New 
Hampshire. Many writers have accepted this statement 
as true, among whom is Mr. .Palfrey, the author of the 
History of New England, although he questions the 
good faith of such petitions. On the other hand Gov- 
ernor Hall, after patient examination, finds no evidence 
of any such petition. Governor Hall is undoubtedly 
correct, for it is due to Governor Golden to say that 
his character, while not free from censure, was above 
the use of any such unworthy means, and subsequent 
events establish the fact that no such petitions could 
have been made in good faith. 

The communication of Governor Golden produced 
the result he desired. A letter was written to him 
by the lords of trade July 13, 1T64, in which they 
say: 

"As the reasons you assign for making Gonnecti- 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 33 

cut river the boundary line between the two provinces 
appear to us to have great weight, we have adopted and 
recommended that proposition. " 

On the 20th day of July, 1764, an order in coun- 
cil was made, referring to this report of the board of 
trade and using this language : 

''His Majesty taking the same into consideration 
was pleased with the advice of his Privy Council to ap- 
prove of what is therein proposed, and doth accordingly 
hereby Order and declare the western banks of the river 
Connecticut, from where it enters the province of Mass- 
achusetts Bay as far north as the 45th degree of north 
latitude to be the boundary line between the said two 
provinces of New Hampshire and New York. " 

It has been, and is still claimed, that this expression 
"to be the boundary" was ambiguous, because it was 
uncertain whether this order was a decision that the 
western bank of the river named had previously been 
the boundary between the provinces, or was an enact- 
ment that afterwards it should be such boundary. This 
is the claim of Mr. B. H. Hall in his History of Eastern 
Vermont, and also that of the author of the History of 
Cumberland County already referred to. If the whole 
record is considered, there can be no ambiguity. From 
that it appears that the action of the privy council was 
not a judicial trial. There was no hearing of any appeal. 
Both in form and in substance the proceeding was 
wholly of a legislative character. In form it shows a 
reference to a committee, a report and the adoption of 
that report. In substance it was a declaration that the 
public good would be promoted by the establishment of 
the boundary named. Such was the opinion of some 
of the members of the privy council who made the or- 
der. Lord Hillsboro, who was a member of that coun- 



34 Vehmoxt Settlers and 

cil and afterwards secretary for the colonies, wrote to 
Governor Moore : 

"I think fit to send you a copy of his Majesty's 
order in council of the 24th of July, 1767, forbidding 
any grants to be made of the lands annexed to New 
York by his Majesty's determination between that col- 
ony and New Hampshire." 

Again in December, 1771, he wrote to Governor 
Tryon : 

" I have long lamented the disorders which have 
prevailed on the lands heretofore considered as a part of 
New Hampshire, but which were annexed to New York 
by his Majesty's order in council on the 20th of July, 
1764." 

And again in 1772 he writes about the country 
which had been annexed to New York. Lord Dart- 
mouth was secretary for the colonies after Lord Hills- 
boro, and his letters to Governor Tryon speak of the 
royal instructions respecting the district annexed to 
New York. 

These citations show clearly that the order fixing 
the boundary was not in fact, nor was it regarded by 
the men who made it, a decision or determination that 
the boundary had been as it was then established, but, 
on the contrary, a legislative order by which certain 
lands, formerly supposed to belong to New Hampshire, 
had been annexed to New York. 

This distinction is important on the question of 
title to the lands. If the order of 1764 had been a de- 
cision that the province of New Hampshire had never 
extended beyond Connecticut river, there would then 
be ground for the claim that no title could come from 
charters given by the New Hampshire officials. There 
is no doubt, however, that this order of the king in 



Nkw Yoj;iv Land Specui>atoes. :s5 

council was precisely like what we have seen was the 
order by which a portion of Massachusetts was annexed 
to New Hampshire, — a legislative provision entirely 
prospective in its operation which had no effect upon 
the rights of parties claiming title to the land embraced 
in the order. 

When the proclamation of Governor Golden an- 
nouncing the decision of the boundary line was first 
promulgated, it was not supposed that the change of 
boundary would interfere with the title of the settlers 
to the lands they had purchased and improved. That 
proclamation appears to have been a surprise to all the 
settlers. There had indeed been a proclamation in 
December, 1763, announcing the claim of New York to 
the Connecticut river as a boundary, but "this does not 
appear to have come to the notice of any of the 
settlers. It is to be remembered that in the new settle- 
ments at that time there were no telegraph lines and in 
fact no mails. There were very few newspapers in the 
whole country and fewer still came to those settlements. 

When, however, during the summer of 1765, they 
found surveyors, claiming to act under New York 
authority, about to run lines upon their lands, the 
settlers began to think there was trouble with their 
titles. Upon further inquiry they found their worst 
fears were only too well founded. Governor Golden 
had commenced making sales of their homes and before 
the first of November following, he had sold over one 
hundred thousand acres of these lands, nearly if not 
quite all of which had been included in the charters 
given by Governor Wentworth. He had sold, on the 
21st of May, 1765, a tract of land called Princetown, 
nominally to a company of twenty-six persons, but 



:i() Vekmoxt Settlers and 

within a few days this company conveyed the whole 
tract to three persons, John Taber Kempe, James 
Duane and Walter Rutherford. These men were New 
York land speculators. Kempe was attorney general, 
and Daane a leading lawyer. This tract covered most 
of the settlements of the town of Arlington, all of those 
in Manchester and all of those on the Battenkill river 
between Arlington and Manchester, and also ground on 
which there were probably some settlements in the 
town of Sunderland. This tract covered the ground 
on which there were probably fifty farms, more or less 
improved, and also included the new grist mill and 
saw mill which Remember Baker was then building at 
the place where is now the village of East Arlington. 
Nine days later, on the 30th day of May, there were 
sold some of the improved lands in Bennington to a 
man named Slaughter, upon which purchase Slaughter 
brought one of the ejectment suits that cut such an im- 
portant ligure a few years later. Sometime during the 
same season about ten thousand acres of land in Ben- 
nington and Pownal were sold to one Crean Brush. 
Brush was then a New York lawyer and land speculator, 
had been employed in the office of the provincial 
secretary, had got into the government " ring " and 
was afterwards sent to Westminster, Vermont, to look 
after the interest of the New York grantees as well as 
his own extensive interests in the grams. He was the 
first lawyer who ever settled in Vermont, but nobody 
will now claim that he was ever a credit to the profes- 
sion. Governor Golden also sold lands in Shaftsbury 
to a man named Small, and on the strength of that title 
the latter brought an ejectment suit against Josiah, or 
rather Isaiah, Carpenter, which was the suit actually 



New York Land Speculatoks. 37 

tried at Albany some years later. In fact, Governor 
Golden had before the 1st of November sold and issued 
patents for all or nearly all of the lands in Bennington 
county that had been occupied by the settlers. 

The governor's operations were brought to a sud- 
den check by the enactment of the famous stamp law, 
which took effect on the 1st day of November. By 
that law no charters or deeds of land, or warrants for 
survey of land, were valid unless stamped with the 
government stamp. There was a very general uprising 
in the colonies against the stamp act, and the stamps 
were seized from the officers having them in charge ; 
and Governor Golden was forced to give up those sent 
to the colony of New York, so that he could not comply 
with the law and stamp his patents. This state- of 
things continued until the following summer, when the 
repeal of the stamp act permitted further issues. In 
the meantime Sir Henry Moore had been made gov- 
ernor. 



Vehmont Settlers and 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE ACTION OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL ON THE APPLICA- 
TION OF THE SETTLERS. 

When the settlers found they were in danger of 
losing their farms, they got together and appointed 
Capt. Robinson of Bennington and Jeremiah French of 
Manchester a committee to go to New York and see 
what could be done about perfecting their titles. 
When they arrived in New York they found Sir Henry 
Moore in office, but could get no satisfactory reply to 
their application for confirmation of their titles. In 
fact, there were two reasons why they could not then 
sret contirmation. Most of their lands had been sold to 
speculators and just at that time the lack of stamps 
prevented the issue of contirmatory patents. There 
was talk about the amount of fees that were to be 
demanded by the New York governor. Capt. Robin- 
son's statement is, that he found their title could not be 
confirmed without payment at the rate of twenty-five 
pounds New York money for every one thousand acres 
of land. That amounted to about fifteen hundred dol- 
lars a township. They found also that for these fees 
they could only get land of inferior quality, the best 
land having been sold to the speculators. 

There were other efforts made at the same time to 
procure confirmation of these New Hampshire titles. It 



New Yokk Land Speculatoks. 39 

appears from the proprietors' records of the little town 
of Maidstone in Essex county that there was a propri- 
etors' meeting at Stratford, Connecticut, in the fall of 
1766, at which an agent was appointed to go to New 
York and attend a meeting of the agents and proprietors 
of the New Hampshire grants, to be held on the 10th 
of the following December for the purpose of seeing 
what could be done to protect their titles. A further 
record shows that, the conference in New York having 
failed, the proprietors voted to send an agent to attend 
another meeting of delegates of the proprietors of 
different towns to be held at the house of Friend Benja- 
min Ferris in "The Oblong," and that at that meeting 
it was decided to send an agent to England to apply to 
the king for relief. In the meantime the settlers of 
Bennington and of the adjoining towns had come to a 
similar conclusion ; and the result was, that it was 
agreed that Capt. Robinson should go to England for 
the benefit of the settlers and grantees. 

It was also determined to secure the services of 
William Samuel Johnson, Esq., agent of the province 
of Connecticut, to assist Capt. Robinson in his applica- 
tion. Capt. Robinson was fortunate in finding in 
control of the British cabinet the Earl of Chatham and 
the special friends of the American colonies. In the 
privy council, to whom his petition was presented, 
were Lord Chancellor Camden, Lord Shelburne and 
Secretary Conway, who were, next to Lord Chatham, 
the most steadfast advocates of the colonies. The 
Archbishop of Canterbury was also very favorably 
inclined to his petition, not only on general principles, 
of justice, but from his special interest in the church 
and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. 



40 Vermoxt Settlers and 

Capt. Robinson made his petition to the privy council 
with the assistance of Mr. Johnson. It was signed by 
himself in his own behalf and in behalf of more than 
one thousand other grantees. This petition was deliv- 
ered to Lord Shelburne, secretary of state for the 
colonies, on the 20th of March, and a petition was also 
presented by the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel, to which had been granted in the New Hamp- 
shire charters one right out of each township. That 
society was interested in the matter because in all the 
New York grants nothing was reserved either for that 
society or for the church of England. Very soon after 
the receipt of that petition Lord Shelburne wrote to 
the Governor of New York a letter in which he gave 
this direction : — 

"I am to signify to you his Majesty's commands 
that you make no new grants of those lands, and that 
you do not molest any person in the quiet possession of 
his grant who can produce good and valid deeds for 
such grant under the seal of the province of New 
Hampshire until you receive further orders respecting 
them. "" " * 

In my letter of the 1 1th of December I was very 
explicit on the point of former grants. You are 
therein directed 'to take care' that the inhabitants 
Ijdng westward of the line reported by the Board of 
Trade as the boundary of the two provinces, be not 
molested, on account of territorial differences, or dis- 
puted jurisdiction, for whatever province the settlers 
are found to belong to, it should make no difference in 
their property, provided that their titles to their lands 
should be found good in other respects, or that they 
have long been in the uninterrupted possession of 
them. His Majesty's intentions are so clearly ex- 
pressed to 3'ou in the above paragraph, that I cannot 
doubt of your having immediately, upon receipt of it, 



New York Land Spec'Ui.a,tors. 41 

removed any cause of those complaints which the 
yjetitions set forth, if not, it is the King's express com- 
mand that it may be done without the smallest delay. 
The power of granting lands was vested in the Govern- 
ors of the colonies originally, for the purpose of accom- 
modating, not distressing settlers, especially the poor 
and industrious. ' ' 

The letter also proceeds to comment on the unrea- 
sonableness of obliging the settlers to pay a second time 
the immense sum demanded in fees. With this letter 
were forwarded copies of the petitions of Capt. Robinson 
and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. To 
this communication and the petitions Governor Moore 
made extended replies on the 9th and 10th of June. On 
those days he wrote four letters to Lord Shelburne, of 
which three were upon this subject. The first one, cover- 
ing over fifteen closely printed octavo pages in the docu- 
mentary history of New York, was devoted to the 
petition of Capt. Robinson. It was a rambling, dis- 
cursive letter, disingenuous and evasive. In the 
first part of his letter he referred to the minutes of the 
provincial council, by which it appears that the order 
of the king in council establishing the boundary on the 
Connecticut river was communicated to the provincial 
council on the 10th of April, 1765, and then he recited 
the order of council of the 22nd of May of the same 
year, requiring the surveyor general not to return 
surveys of any lands actually occupied by settlers. 
This was literally true, but the manner of its statement 
was such as to create a false impression. Its purpose 
was, undoubtedly, to carry the idea that the provincial 
council by making this order had intended to secure 
the rights of actual settlers. It would naturally be 
presumed from the date so ostentatiously shown, — the 



42 Vermont Setti-ehs and 

first notice of the order establishinof the boundary being 
in April and the order prohibiting the surveyor general 
to return surveys of land occupied by settlers being in 
May, — that the order would cut off all encroachments 
on lands occupied by settlers. Governor Moore omit- 
ted to state, however, that on the very day before this 
order was made a patent had been issued for the grant 
of Princetown, covering 26,000 acres of the best land 
in the province, and that the record showed a survey 
commencing "one hundred forty chains westward of 
John Holley's Hovise," which included that house within 
the limits of the lands granted. It was true that the 
order recited had been disobeyed in respect to every 
grant of lands in Bennington county that were occu- 
pied by settlers, and that all or very nearly all the 
improved lands in that county had been granted in 
disobedience to that order. 

Governor I\loore further made parade of what he 
called an order of the provincial council, that from 
the lands granted to one Small there should be reserved 
two hundred acres for each of the settlers actually 
upon the land. If any such order was passed, it was 
entirely ineffectual, because it was the case of this same 
Small against Carpenter, actually tried at Albany, in 
which judgment was rendered against Carpenter, al- 
though he was in actual possession of his farm before 
Small's grant. 

Governor Moore also devoted nearly a page of his 
letter to a statement that Capt. Kobinson and a Mr. 
Cole had applied to him and his council for relief, that 
he was himself their advocate before the council recom- 
mending that they be allowed to retain their farms, 
that the council did so determine, and that the council 



New York Land Speculators. 43 

further declared that they should have their lands 
without any fees, for which he states that Cole and 
Robinson were very grateful, and took occasion to 
follow him into his private parlor to express that grati- 
tude. There was no occasion for any gratitude. If 
there had been any such order of the council it was 
worthless, because, on careful inspection, it appears 
from the governor's own statement that their lands 
had already been granted away. In fact, judgment in 
ejectment was afterwards rendered against some of 
these same parties. 

Governor Moore further claimed that a large part 
of the land occupied by these settlers was situated 
within less than twenty miles of Hudson river. This 
was untrue in fact, but, as it was then the common 
claim among the New York speculators, it cannot be 
charged that in this respect Governor Moore was guilty 
of intentional falsehood. In another part of the same 
reply, however, the governor cannot be so excused. 
He devoted several pages of that reply to a statement 
of the great things he had done and was about to do for 
the benefit of settlers on the New Hampshire grants. 
He stated that he had determined to engage personally 
in a plan for the settlement of a township twelve miles 
north of the north boundary of Cumberland county, 
which was to be distributed to poor families on small 
farms ; that as soon as those terms were made known, 
applications were made by diti'erent persons for grants 
and no less than fourteen families were already settled 
on it ; that he had proposals from ten more then living 
in New York ; that as the giving of lands alone to 
those people was not suflScient without other assistance, 
he had at their request ordered a saw mill and 



44 Vermont Settlers and 

grist mill to be built for their use ; and that as there 
was no building in that part of the country yet appro- 
priated for divine worship, he had directed a church to 
be built at his sole expense, in the center of the town- 
ship, and should set apart a large farm as the glebe for 
the incumbrance. 

All this, if it had been true, would have been no 
answer to the claims of Capt. Robinson and his asso- 
ciates. There was, however, not a wprd of truth in 
the whole statement. The township described as situ- 
ated on Connecticut river twelve miles north of the 
boundary of Cumberland county was the township of 
Bradford. There had been application for a charter o 
that township under the name of Mooretown made by 
one John French and his associates, and, before the 
arrival of Governor Moore, Governor Colden had the 
papers prepared for the issue of the charter. When 
Governor Moore assumed control of the government, 
he refused to permit the charter to be issued without 
the payment of full fees which were over ninety dollars 
for every one thousand acres. After Governor Moore's 
death the charter was issued to William Smith, author 
of the History of New York, and twenty-four associates; 
and that charter recites that the original petitioner, 
French, had deceased, and that Smith and his associates 
represented the same parties. 

The history of Bradford was written up for Miss 
Heminway's Gazetteer in 1868, and was well written by 
the Rev. Mr. McKean. In that history the charter 
issued to historian Smith is set forth in full and a full 
account of the early settlement of the town is given. 
There were not fourteen families settled in that town at 
the time of Governor Moore's statement, and not one of 



New York Laxd Speculatoks. 45 

the settlers who were then there had come on account 
of any inducements offered by Governor Moore. Gov- 
ernor Moore never built or procured the buildino; of 
any mills nor of any church, nor did he ever expend a 
penny for the benefit of settlers. 

Governor Moore's letter in respect to patent fees 
was evasive. He said that he never made a demand 
for fees either from Mr. Robinson, or from any other 
person, but had always thought himself happy in 
having an opportunity (sic) in remitting them to those 
he apprehended would be distressed in paying them. 
He never did remit any part of the fees for confir- 
mation of any New Hampshire charters. It might be 
literally true that he did not make demand of Mr. 
Robinson, because, as the most of the Bennington 
lands had already been granted to New York specu- 
lators, it was out of his power to make confirmation 
upon any terms. It might have been true that he had 
not in person demanded any sum from any other 
person. His agents, however, had made demand for 
the fuUifees. Mr. Isaac Miller was agent of the heirs 
of Governor Dummer and the other proprietors of 
Dummerston. In a letter he wrote to one of his 
principals he states the fact, that Colonel Samuel Wells 
of Brattleboro as agent for the New York Governor 
had demanded fourteen hundred and forty dollars for 
the confirmation of the patent of that township. That 
township covered one-third of the forty-eight thousand 
acre tract known as the "equivalent" lands. 

Governor Moore in his answer undertook to 
weaken the claims of the New Hampshire grantees by 
affirming that their expenses in obtaining their charters 
were less than they pretended. As we have seen, 



46 Vehmoxt Settlers and 

Governor Wentworth's fees were by no means uniform, 
but there is no evidence that any charter was granted 
by him upon the terms named by Governor Moore, 

The conclusion of this remarkable document con- 
tained an expression of indignation at the presumption 
of a man who, having followed "one of the lowest and 
meanest occupations, at once sets himself up for a states- 
man, and from a notion that the wheels of government 
are as easily managed as those of a wagon, takes upon 
himself to direct the king's ministers in their depart- 
ment." 

He had previously stated that Capt. Eobinson's ser- 
vice in the then late war had been nothing more than 
driving an ox cart for sutlers. This was not true. 
Capt. Robinson's name appears upon the muster 
rolls of Massachusetts as the captain of a company of 
militia which was in actual service during two cam- 
paigns and engaged in the battle in which Colonel Wil- 
liams lost his life. Even if that statement had been true, it 
would have been a very insufficient answer to the claims 
of the men who had purchased their land in good faith 
from the officers of the government, who had for many 
years been in actual possession and control as agents of 
the owner, and who, relying upon that purchase, had 
made large expenditures of labor and means in the im- 
provement of their homes. That statement is more 
discredit to the governor than to Capt. Robinson. 

The answer to the petition of the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel claims that in some of the 
townships for which he had granted confirmatory charters 
the rights of that society were protected. He admitted 
that in one township this confirmation was omitted and 
he negflected to state that in all of the grants on the 



New York Land Specui.atoi:s. 47 

west side of the mountains that society had been wholly 
ignored. He claimed that he had prepared to grant a 
whole township to the church of England, which he 
claimed would be more than an equivalent for the one 
share the society had lost. The records show no evi- 
dence of any such township, and the whole history of 
the time shows this statement of Governor Moore to 
be utterly false. 

The reply to these communications of Governor 
Moore came more promptly than was usual in the pro- 
ceedings of the privy council. On the 24:th day of July, 
1767, an order of the king in council was passed, re- 
peating the prohibition to the governors of New York 
from making any grants of lands described in Mr. Rob- 
inson's petition and in the petition of the Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel until the further pleasure 
of the king. It is said, and so Mr. Robinson reported 
at home, that at the time that order was passed a ma- 
jority of the privy council were" in favor of making a 
further order confirming the titles under the New 
Hampshire grants ; but the president of the council. 
Lord Northington, objected that such an order had bet- 
ter be made on a regular appeal and that the council 
was also very much occupied with other matters. This 
president of the council was the ex-chancellor of whom 
it is related by Lord Campbell, in the "Lives of the 
Lord Chancellors," that he applied to the king to be 
relieved from holding evening sessions of his court be- 
cause he wanted to get drunk after dinner. Whatever 
may have been the immediate reasons. Lord Northing- 
ton was entirely right. An order confirming a title 
could be made only in the exercise of the judicial func- 
tions of the council. That required a regular ap- 



48 Vekmont Settleus and 

pearance of all the parties interested and a full hearing 
on the merits of the claim. 

Had the Chatham ministry remained in power, it is 
very probable further relief would have been granted 
to the settlers, and perhaps they would have been re- 
stored to the jurisdiction of New Hampshire, because, as 
we have seen, that ministry was the most favorably in- 
clined to do justice to colonies ; but the reaction of the 
high tory element against the tidal wave that had caused 
the repeal of the stamp act had already commenced. 
Lord Shelburne was very soon afterwards driven out of 
the secretaryship, and a new ministry, of which Charles 
Townsend was the leading spirit, was formed. The 
prime object of that new ministry was to establish the 
right of taxing the colonists, and out of that contest 
grew the American Kevolution. There was no dispo- 
sition on the part of the new officers to approve the op- 
pressive measures of the New York government, and so 
we find letters of Lord Hillsboro and Lord Dartmouth 
condemning those acts in language identical with that 
of Lord Shelburne ; but in their disapproval the new 
administration was handicapped by the pressure of the 
great contest then coming on. In their contest with 
the colonies it was necessary for the administration to 
cultivate all the loyalty it could among the colonists. 
In New York the royalists were almost all included in 
the circle around the royal governors, and it was not 
considered wise to alienate the few friends they had in 
the colony. So the proceedings of the New York gov- 
ernors were passed by with censure, where, under other 
circumstances, they would have met more decisive treat- 
ment. 

While the political administration of England was, 



New Yoi:k La^jd yi'Ecur.ATORs. 49 

during the Walpole administrations and in tlie first part 
of tlie eigliteenth century, miserably corrupt and inef- 
ficient, its judicial administration had come to deserve 
high rank. It had already furnished Lord Hardwick and 
Lord Camden for chancellor and was about to give Lord 
Mansfield for chief justice ; and there was not a country 
where private rights were more carefully protected than 
in England. 

Governor Moore died early in September, 1769, 
and upon his death Lieutenant Governor Golden again 
succeeded to the administration. 



Vekmont Setti-ei!S and 



CHAPTER V. 

EJECTMENT SUITS. 

Soon after the death of Governor Moore, the hold- 
ers of the New York titles commenced active measures 
to assert their claims. Their first attempt was upon 
the land of Mr. James Breakenridge, who lived in the 
northwestern part of the town of Bennington. He had 
a farm of considerable extent which, without being no- 
tified of any adverse claim, he had occupied and im- 
proved for many years. There had been made by the 
New York government, in 1739, a grant of a tract of 
land called "Walloomsuc," which was claimed to ex- 
tend over a part of what was included in the township 
of Bennington. According to a plat or map made on 
paper, it embraced some two or three thousand acres in 
Bennington, including the whole of Mr. Breakenridge's 
farm. According to Ethan Allen's account of it, in • 
1774, the limits of that patent, as shown by the lines 
actually surveyed, included only about thirty or forty 
acres in Bennington. If the monument described by 
Allen was not upon the line of the actual survey, then 
there was no actual survey of the eastern boundary of 
that patent. 

On the 19th of October, 1769, commissioners were 
sent from Albany to make surveys on Mr. Breaken- 
ridge's farm under some quit rent statutes of New York. 
This proceeding was evidently preliminary to an action 



New York Land Si-eculators. 51 

of ejectment. By some^ means Mr. Breakenridge had 
notice of the approach of these commissioners, and on the 
day of their arrival, October 19th, they found present 
not only Mr. Breakenridge himself, but most of his neigh- 
bors, including the minister, the Rev. Jedediah Dewey. 
Some of these men had guns with them, but they were 
all engaged in the peaceable avocation of harvesting 
corn. Without using any actual violence, or, so far as 
appears, makingany boisterous threats, they induced the 
commissioners to withdraw without doing the work for 
which they had come. The Xew York authorities 
claimed that it was a riot and thereupon indictments for 
riot were found against Mr. Breakenridge, Mr. Dewey, 
Mr. Robinson and others. This was the first act- 
ual resistance to the claims of the New York specula- 
tors. Without doubt, their actions technically consti- 
tuted a riot, although the parties implicated could truth- 
fully assert the old formula, that they used no more 
force and violence than was necessary to accomplish 
their purpose, — that of preventing the operations of the 
commissioners. It was the first deliberate resistance to 
the royal authority in the colonies. There had been, 
prior to that, it is true, some effervescent uprisings 
against the stamp act, but this was the first instance in 
which the people of any of these communities, includ- 
ing their most conservative men and the minister of the 
parish, united in a deliberate yet stern resistance to 
what they deemed the oppression of the rulers set over 
them. It was, undoubtedly, an act that had been care- 
fully considered and had been made the subject of prayer 
as well as of consultation. It was a brave act, because 
the settlers were few in number and not rich, and they 
were defying the authority of a powerful colony. 



:);2 Vkumoxt Settlers and 

Here in this little opening, in the forest and in the 
mellow sunlight of that autumnal day was begun a con- 
test out of which grew the establishment of a new state 
and the development of those traits of character still 
peculiar to the people of that state. It was in some 
respects the initial contest of the American Revolution, 
although the settlers had then no intention of opposing 
the English Government because they had reason to be- 
lieve that, when they could reach that government, 
they could find redress for their wrongs. This contest 
was, without doubt, the genesis of a new state. 

The men engaged in this contest and the clergy- 
man who led them were none of them land jobbers nor 
speculators. There was no display nor flourish in 
their resistance, and they were not afraid to encounter 
the great odds against them. This resistance was not 
any manufactured excitement wrought up by reckless 
men. Ethan Allen had no part in it. He was then 
unknown to fame. Seth Warner was undoubtedly 
there, because he was a neighbor of Mr. Breakenridge, 
but his presence attracted no attention. Remember 
Baker was then building his second mill at Pawlet. Ira 
Allen was either a school- boy of eighteen years in Salis- 
bury, or, possibly, a young surveyor running lines in 
the woods of Hubbardton. These men of Bennington 
started the new state alone and unaided. 

At the same time the New York claimants either 
began ejectment suits or pushed forward those eject- 
ment suits that had previously been begun. There 
was one suit against Mr. Breakenridge, another against 
Mr. Fuller of Bennington, another against Mr. Car- 
penter of Shaftsbury, and another against Mr. Rose of 
Manchester : and it was understood that suits had 



Nf;av Yohk Land Speculators. oS 

either been commenced or were likely to be commenced 
against all of the settlers in that vicinity, and that 
there were claimants for all of the improved lands in 
what is now Bennington county. 

The prosecution of these suits required united 
action for their defense, and here was the first public 
appearance in the grants of a man whose name and 
fame are co-extensive with the state of Vermont and 
about whose name is woven much of the romance 
attached to its early history. He has been called the 
Robin Hood of Vermont. It would seem more appro- 
priate to designate him as a William Tell. Yet his 
character and history were unique, and no other desig- 
_ nation so well fits him as that of the Ethan Allen of 
Vermont. 

Allen was at that time thirty-two years of age. 
He was a native of Litchfield county, Connecticut, the 
son of Joseph Allen and his wife, Mary Baker. He 
was the oldest of eight children, of whom six were 
boys. His youngest brother, Ira, was, next to Ethan, 
the most prominent figure in the early history of the 
state. His father was a farmer living in limited, if not 
straitened, circumstances in Litchfield and the neighbor- 
ing town of Cornwall, where he died when Ethan was 
about seventeen years of age. The family moved to 
the neighboring town of Salisbury, where it seems that 
Ethan had spent some time as a student and where 
under the instruction of the village minister he had 
been nearly fitted for college ; but the death of his 
father prevented further advance in his studies. He 
worked for some years on the farm in care of his 
father's family, and, some time after their removal to 
Salisbury, he got some interest in an iron furnace in 



54 Vekmont Settleks and 

the northern part of the township near the Massachu- 
setts line. Of his history at that time very little is 
known. He was married in 1762, and shortly after 
his marriage took up his home just across the line in 
Sheffield, Massachusetts, but, it would seem, continued 
his business in the iron furnace until about the time he 
went to Vermont. Although his legal home was in 
Sheffield, Massachusetts, he was usually counted as an 
inhabitant of Salisbury, Connecticut. That little town 
of Salisbury appears to have been the parent of more 
of the Vermont settlers than any other town. From it 
came the settlers of many of the towns in Bennington, 
Rutland, Addison and Chittenden counties, and from 
the same town came also the hrst settler in St. Albans 
in Franklin county. It is a little town nestling among 
the hills that form the water shed between the Housa- 
tonic and Hudson rivers. It had, about the year 1740, 
become prominent by reason of iron mines discovered 
within its boundaries ; and for years the iron manufac- 
tured in that vicinity was largely used in the colonies 
and had great reputation for a superior quality. It is 
situated in the northwestern corner of the state of 
Connecticut, joining, on the north, the town of Sheffield 
in Massachusetts, and, on the west, that extension of 
Dutchess County which we have seen was designated 
"The Oblong." The town probably never had more 
than two or three thouisand inhabitants ; but four men, 
each one of whom had more to do than any others with 
the early history of the state of Vermont, had lived 
within its borders. These men were Ethan Allen, 
Thomas Chittenden, Ira Allen and Nathaniel Chipman. 
Just when Ethan Allen first came to Vermont is a 
matter about which statements are conflicting. Prof. 



New York Land Speculators. 55 

Zadock Thompson, who devoted much time to a study 
of the life of Ethan Allen, fixes the date of his coming 
to Vermont as 1766. Governor Hall, whose researches, 
if not as extensive, are quite as reliable, fixes it at 
1769. The editor of the collections of the Vermont 
Historical Society and of the Proceedings of the 
Governor and Council of the early state, adopts 
Prof. Thompson's statements, while most other writ- 
ers, including the late Henry Hall, author of an 
unfinished work on the "Life of Ethan Allen," fix the 
date at 1769. In the town history of Hubbardton, 
found in the Gazetteer, there is mention of a rumor 
that Ethan Allen was interested in the original proprie- 
torship of that township, and there were stories that 
some of the marked trees bore the initials of Zimri and 
Ira Allen. That historian does not, however, mention 
any titles or records of titles derived from Ethan Allen, 
and there is no evidence found of his having had any 
such title. If any of the Aliens had anything to do 
with Hubbardton, it must have been in 1769 or earlier;, 
because, after that date, their presence is well accounted 
for elsewhere. It would seem very probable that in 
1769 the* two younger Aliens might have been em- 
ployed as surveyors of that township. They were 
educated as land surveyors and their circumstances 
rendered it necessary that they should seek employ- 
ment as soon as they could. The first president of the 
Vermont Historical Society advances the theory that 
Ethan Allen was interested in some of the patents 
issued by Governor Wentworth. There is, however, 
no evidence to warrant the statement that he had any 
interest in the Vermont lands until five years after the 
last patent from New Hampshire, and he must have 



56 Vehmoxt Settlers axd 

continued in his furnace business for some time in 
order to have obtained the means to get the interest in 
the lands he afterwards held. 

What interest he first got or how he acquired it is 
entirely a matter of conjecture. It is known that Ben- 
jamin Ferris and others got charters to the townships of 
Charlotte and Ferrisbr^-g, and that Edward Burling and 
Samuel Willis and their associates, got lands in Colches- 
ter, Williston, and Burlington in Chittenden county. 
It is known that, at some time between 1769 and 1777, 
Ethan Allen, with three of his brothers and Remem- 
ber Baker, who was a cousin of the Aliens, got title to 
most of the lands in those four townships. The names 
of Benjamin Ferris and of Edward Burling appear, with 
others, among the names subscribed to the powers of 
attorney given to Capt. Robinson when he left for Eng- 
land. Allen's name does not appear among those names, 
although the list includes several who must have been 
his near neighbors. In Prof. Thompson's "Life of 
Ethan Allen" it is related that he early became ac- 
quainted wath Dr. Thos. Young, who resided in "The 
Oblong," and from him derived some peculiar religious 
notions, or, rather, notions in regard to religious sub- 
jects. It is very likely that he was also acquainted with 
Benjamin Ferris, who resided in the same vicinity. We 
have seen that there was a meeting of the proprietors 
of the grants at the house of Ferris at "The Oblong," 
at which it was determined to send an agent to England 
upon failure of getting satisfaction from Governor 
Moore. It seems probable, therefore, that the good 
Quaker, being by religion as well as by nature averse 
to contests, is likely to have been very willing to dis- 
pose of his interest in the grants and perhaps to have 



New York Land Speculators. 57 

given credit for some, if not all, of the purchase money. 
This would just suit Allen, who could not have had 
much money, but who was not of a timid disposition, 
and by no means a peaceable Quaker. Judge Chipman, 
in his "Life of Nathaniel Chipman," tells us about the 
Allen family and their lack of means. Ethan Allen 
must have acquired a little something out of his furnace 
operations which had extended over a period of eight or 
ten years. Hemau and Levi Allen had been partners 
in a country store in Salisbury, and Prof. Thompson 
gives a copy of the notice of dissolution of that partner- 
ship, which appears to have occurred February 3,1772. 
We find that shortly afterward, Levi Allen was the pur- 
chaser of the New Hampshire titles to the towns of 
Georgia and S wanton in Franklin county. Levi Allen 
was not a member of the Onion River Company, al- 
though it is so stated in Judge Chipman's book. The 
proprietors records of Colchester, written by Ira Allen 
himself, give the names of the members of that com- 
pany. It was composed of Ethan Allen and his three 
brothers, Heman, Zimri and Ira, and Remember Baker. 
At a later period the members of this Onion River Com- 
pany became the owners of the largest part of eleven 
townships of the New Hampshire grants and Ira Allen 
acquired large interest in the lands sold by the state 
of Vermont. 

The Aliens were, undoubtedly, land speculators 
in the fullest extent of that term. They cannot claim, 
as could the settlers at Bennington, that they were 
innocent purchasers of those New Hampshire grants. 
They took their titles, such as they got, with full 
notice of the adverse claims, and most likely the exis- 
tence of those adverse claims made the former holders 



58 Vermont Settlehs and 

of the titles they »ot willing to dispose of them at 
prices within their reach. 

This character of land speculators adhered to them 
in their intercourse with their fellow-settlers, and was, 
probably, the chief cause of the lurking distrust with 
which they were regarded by the other settlers of the 
new state. It may be a matter of surprise to those 
whose ideas of the Aliens were formed from reading 
the novels of which they were the heroes, to learn that 
they were personally unpopular among the settlers; 
yet such was the fact. Although they both had a won- 
derfully magnetic power over the men with whom they 
came in immediate contact, yet, outside of those under 
the influence of that immediate contact, they were 
regarded with distrust. When the Continental Con- 
gress had authorized the formation of a battalion of 
Green Mountain Boys and had given authority to select 
their own officers, a convention of the committees of 
the several towns was held at ' • the inn of Cephas Kent 
in Dorset," in June, 1775. At that convention the 
officers of the new battalion were selected by ballot, 
and Seth Warner was elected lieutenant colonel over 
Ethan Allen b}^ a vote of forty-one to five. 

Although Ira Allen had been the most active 
member of the new state government, he never could 
get any higher place than that of member of the 
council and state treasurer. He twice failed of an 
election by the people, and the second time he was also 
defeated by the legislature. He never afterwards 
attempted to get any state office. On account of his 
connection with the Aliens Governor Chittenden was 
himself defeated in the election of 1789. A thorough 
investigation of all the matters of complaint vindicated 



New Yokk Land Speculatoi:s. "jO 

the governor, and he was afterwards continued in office 
until the last year of his life. Ira Allen's accounts as 
state treasurer were examined by a commission, of 
which his successful rival was a member ; and, though 
they embraced details amounting to hundreds of thous- 
ands of pounds, he showed vouchers for every penny 
of his disbursements. For a man of his opportunities 
and training, the accounts he presented were wonder- 
fully accurate. 

For this jealousy with which the settlers regarded 
both the Aliens, when in fact they were not deserving 
of censure but had, both of them, deserved well of 
their neighbors and of the new state, no explanation 
can be given except the fact that they were land 
speculators. 

Before the Revolutionary War Ethan Allen spent 
most of his time in Vermont, although his family 
remained at Sheffield until 1777. In some of the proc- 
lamations offering a reward for his arrest, he is de- 
scribed as resident in Bennington, but it does not 
appear that he ever had any permanent home in that 
town. Previous to 1769 or 1770, he had, undoubt- 
edly, by purchase of some of the rights of the original 
grantees, become interested in the New Hampshire 
grants. These rights so purchased probably included 
several obtained from the Ferrises and Burlings. 

When the trial of the ejectment suits was about to 
come on at Albany, he was interested in the result ; 
and therefore took very active part in preparing the 
defense to those suits. He went to Connecticut and 
employed Mr. Jared Ingersol, a prominent attorney in 
that province. There was not at that time a lawyer 
within what is now called the State of Vermont. He 



(50 Vermont Settleks axd 

also went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and pro- 
cured official copies of the commission to Governor 
Wentworth and the other papers necessary to show the 
title under which the settlers claimed. 

A trial of some of the ejectment cases was had at 
Albany. The bill of exceptions in one of the cases has 
been preserved and it shows a trial before Judge 
Robert R. Livingston and Judge George Duncan Lud- 
wig on the 28th of June, 1770, of an action of eject- 
ment in favor of John Small against Josiah Carpenter 
for lands in the town of Shaftsbury. The plaintiff 
claimed title under a soldier's grant made by Gov. 
Golden dated October 30, 1765. The defendant offered 
in evidence the charter of the town of Shaftsbury 
authenticated by the seal of the province of New 
Hampshire, dated August 20, 1761, showing title in 
himself. The court rejected that evidence, assuming 
to take judicial notice that at the date of the charter 
the land in question was not in the province of New 
Hampshire but was in New York. All the evidence of 
defendant's title being ruled out by the court there 
was, as a matter of course, nothing left to go to the 
jury, and the verdict was necessarily for the plaintiff. 



New Yokk Land Specui.atoi;s. 



CHAPTER VI. 



COMMENTS OX THE LAW. 



The correctness of this ruling and the merits of 
the claims to the land of these grants are matters about 
which people have disputed for more than one hundred 
years and it is very likely this dispute will continue 
until the whole thing is forgotten. The land in dispute 
was an improved farm, in possession of which the 
defendant had been for several years prior to the com- 
mencement of plaintiff's title. At the time of this 
trial there was no statute like the present statutes 
of Vermont and many other states for the relief of 
parties who had taken land under an apparently good 
title and who, relying upon that title, had made perma- 
nent improvements. By the harsh rules of the 
common law, then in full force, there was an absolute 
forfeiture of all improvements in case of a recovery in 
ejectment by the plaintiff. 

The grant under which the plaintiff' claimed was 
made in direct disregard of the orders of the provincial 
council, made May 22, 1705, prohibiting the surveyor 
general from including in a return of surveys made by 
him any land in actual occupation of a settler. The 
loss of these improvements was unquestionably a great 
hardship to the settler. The order of the provincial coun- 
cil cited, as we have seen, so prominently by Governor 
Moore in his reply to Lord Shelburne was never in- 



62 VeHMONT SlCTTLEliS AND 

tended to be obeyed and was made only for the purpose 
of conveying a false impression. The whole history of 
grants in that county shows a deliberate purpose on the 
part of speculators to select improved lands for the sake 
of getting the benefit of those improvements. 

The claim of title to these lands rests upon a 
purely technical question of law. The most prominent 
feature of these claims has been overlooked by nearly 
every one who has taken part in the discussion about 
them. Both the provinces of New York and New 
Hampshire were royal provinces, in which the title to 
the lands belonged, not to the colonies or provinces, 
but to the crown of England. All the charters or 
conveyances were in the name of the king of England 
and were executed by parties claiming to be the author- 
ized agents of the king. The title to those lands was 
precisely like the title now held by the United States 
government to lands in our western states ; and the 
material and decisive question was, simply, who was 
authorized by the king to make those conveyances. 
There was nothing in the oificial character of the gov- 
ernor of either province which of itself gave him that 
authority. The authority of the governors of both 
provinces to grant lands was contained in special in- 
structions partaking of the nature of powers of 
attorney. These were subject to revocation and, after 
they were revoked, neither the governor nor the pro- 
vincial council had any more authority to make grants 
of land than would the ordinary agent after the revoca- 
tion of his power of attorney. None of the advocates 
of the New York claims have ever repoguized this fact, 
and it was entirely overlooked by Judge Livingston in 
his ruling in the case of Small against Carpenter. It 



New York Land Specui.atous. (53 

was, however, recognized by Judge Chipman in a case 
growing out of tiie charter of Windsor (Jacob v. Smead 
1 D. Chip. 56); and was also recognized by Mr, E. J. 
Phelps in his oration at Bennington in 1891. 

Another important consideration in this discussion 
is found in the fact that, while the New York claims 
made large account of the grant of Charles II to the 
Duke of York, their claim of title was not under the 
grant to the Duke of York, but adverse to it. If there 
had been any claim of title coming from that grant, it 
would have accrued to the heirs of James II, and not 
to the crown of England. The title would have come 
to the Chevalier St. George and his son Charles Edward, 
instead of to George III. The • original grant to the 
Duke of York, afterwards James 11, was a proprietary 
grant, like that of Pennsylvania to William Penn or of 
Maryland to Lord Baltimore. The New York claim 
was, that when the Duke of York became kmg, his 
proprietary title merged in the title he held, as king of 
England. That was the opinion of James himself and 
his advisers, as we find by his instructions to Governor 
Dongan in the year following his accession to the throne. 
It is probable, however, that, instead of a merger, this 
was a surrender of his proprietary title. However this 
may be, whether by merger or by surrender, the fact 
remains that his proprietary title became extinguished. 
There is no doubt about the law of merger. When 
one title is merged in another it becomes absolutely ex- 
tinguished, just as effectually as a chalk mark is wiped 
out on a black-board, and the result is precisely the 
same as if no such title had ever been granted. Ethan 
Allen, although not a lawyer, was a man of vigorous 
intellect and in his argument, made in 1774, although 



04 Vermont Setti.eks and 

he did not profess to understand anything about the 
law of merger, he pointed out the absurdity of the New- 
York claim being both adverse to, and dependent upon, 
this grant to the Duke of York. The extinguishment 
of this grant left the condition of the title the same as if 
it had never been made. All there was left, then, was 
the name of New York applied to the province, and all 
that could be claimed was what would be presumed from 
the establishment of a province by the name of New 
York. If in other respects it appeared that the bound- 
aries of the province of New York were the same as of 
the land grant to the Duke of York under that name, 
then there would be a ptesumption that this boundary 
by the Connecticut River was intended by the King as 
the boundary of the province of New York. This 
argument, however, is entirely overthrown by the fact 
that not one foot of the boundaries named in the grant 
to the Duke of York was ever accepted as a part of the 
boundary between the province of New York and the 
adjoining provinces. The grant to the Duke of York 
was, in terms, a grant of all the land lying between the 
Connecticut River and Delaware Bay. Undoubtedly at 
the time of making that grant, the officers of the crown 
had only in mind a strip of land bordering on the sea 
coast of a uniform width, extending inland as far as the 
bay itself. In fact, however, the Connecticut River flows 
about four hundred miles. A straight line drawn from 
its source to the head of Delaware Bay would cross the 
state of Vermont somewhere near the town of Benning- 
ton. It would not include the land in the town of 
Shaftsbury claimed in this ejectment suit, and would 
not include the present City of Albany, but would take 
in what is now the City of Philadelphia. Not even the 



New Yoijk Land Si'Erui.ATORs. (55 

most zealous advocate of New York can now claim that 
the west line of the grant was ever recognized as 
the west line of the province of New York. Again, 
the line of the Connecticut River was expressly disa- 
vowed as the eastern boundary in the case of Connect- 
icut and Massachusetts. The boundary of Connecticut 
had been established as early as 1650, while New York 
was a Dutch Province, and the boundary of New York 
and Massachusetts was settled in 1773. 

After the merger or surrender of the title of the 
Duke of York, the land came back to the king as orig- 
inal proprietor, and he had perfect control over it and 
the right to make in his discretion any disposition in 
respect to it. He had also the right arbitrarily to 
revoke or change any previous order or disposition. On 
the sixth day of September, 1744, an order was made 
by the king and council reciting that Fort Dummer had 
come within the province of New Hampshire and direct- 
ing the authorities of that province to make provision 
for its maintenance. It is true that New Hampshire 
neglected to obey this order, but the question here is, 
not what New Hampshire did, but what the owner of 
the land directed with regard to the boundaries of his 
provinces. If there had ever been anything equivalent 
to an order that the Connecticut River should be the 
eastern boundary of the New York province, this order 
of the king and council made in 1744, had the effect of 
repealing such prior order ; and from that time until 
the order of 1764, the Connecticut River was not the 
boundary between New York and New Hampshire. 
The order of 1744 did not of itself designate any bound- 
ary in place of the prior one so repealed by it. If then, 
there ever had been an order designating the Connecti- 



6() Vermont Settle ks and 

cut River as the eastern boundary of the New York 
province, the most that could be claimed was, that 
after the repeal of that designation, the boundary was 
left indefinite. 

Here, then, belonging to one owner, was a large 
tract of territory consisting of two parcels which were 
defined only by the fact that one was east of the other, 
and that one was called New York and the other New 
Hampshire. The eastern part of this tract had been 
put under the control of one of the owner's agents, the 
governor of New Hampshire ; the western part had 
been put under the control of another of the same own- 
er's agents, the governor of New York. But, even if 
no authoritative definite designation by the owner of 
the dividing line between these two parcels was then in 
force, nevertheless, such a line could at any time be 
designated by the king himself in any manner he saw 
fit. In 1755 a map was published, and it had upon it 
the certificate of the accredited agents and oflicers of 
the king in respect to his colonial lands. That certifi- 
cate is quoted by Governor Hall on page 50, of his 
Early History, and reads as follows : 

' ' This map was undertaken with the approbation 
and at the request of the lord's commissioners for trade 
and plantations, and is chieliy composed from draughts, 
charts and actual surveys of different parts of his 
Majesty's colonies and plantations in America, a great 
part of which had been lately taken by their lordship's 
orders and transmitted to this office by the governors 
of said colonies and others. 

Plantation Office, February 13, 1755. 

John Pownal, Secretary." 

There were other maps of the same kind. Mr. L. 
E. Chittenden, in his late volume mentions a map, still 



Mew Yoiuv Land Si'ecui.atous. 67 

in existence, wbiich is dated in 1762, and dedicated to 
Charles Townsend, and which shows the boundary be- 
tween New Hampshire and New York the same as the 
map above referred to. 

The effect of published maps as instruments of evi- 
dence in questions of titles to land has been a matter of 
frequent examination by the courts of this country, and 
the principles upon which they may be received in evi- 
dence are now pretty well settled. Those questions 
most frequently arise upon claims of dedication of 
streets and public grounds in new cities, and they 
present the exact question here under consideration, 
viz., what is proper evidence of the intention of the 
owner of land in respect to the use and disposition of 
that land. It was held nearly one hundred years ago 
in a case involving the public use of the streets and 
public grounds of the city of Cincinnati, that, where 
a proprietor made a map of lands he owned, and that 
map showed that on certain parts of his land there was 
a public street or park, the making of that map was 
evidence of the intention of the owner of the land to 
dedicate that street to the public use. Following that 
principle, it has more recently been held that, where a 
map made by other parties was brought to the attention 
of the owner of the land and he used it in his dealings 
with parties in respect to that land, he, by that act 
ratified the map and made it his own for such pur- 
pose. On the same principle, when the king of Eng- 
land by his accredited agents approved this map of 1755 
and authorized the makers of it to publish it to the 
world with his certificate, it was a clear indication of his 
intention that the land embraced in his two provinces 
of New York and New Hampshire should be divided 



VeKMOXT SETTI-ERS AX] 



according to the line shown on that map. The division 
between New Hampshire and Maooo^mioot ts on that 
map was a substantial prolongation of the western lines 
of the provinces of Connecticut and Now Y .OBk, and 
that, in the absence of any express desigaation to the 
contrary, would be sufficient evidence to establish the 
New Hampshire title. The decisions referred to, while 
they have been made since the trial of the action 
in Judge Livingston's court at Albany, are simply de- 
claratory of general principles of law which existed at 
that time and which should have controlled the action 
of that court. 

Again, even if the boundary between the two prov- 
inces had been left wholly undefined by the king, the terms 
of the commission to Governor Wentworth authorized 
him to extend the jurisdiction on the line west "until 
it meets our other governments. " That gave Governor 
Wentworih authority to take possession of the unoccu- 
pied lands between the two provinces. Upon that 
authority in the spring of 1741 he sent his surveyor, 
Mr. Richard Hazen, to run the line between his prov- 
ince and that of Massachusetts. This Mr. Hazen did, 
and marked it on the ground to a point within twenty 
miles of the Hudson river. That was the first actual 
occupation of the lands beyond the settlements near Fort 
Dummer until the lands described in the Hoosic and 
Walloomsuc grants were reached. According to the 
utmost claim for the extent of those grants, they did 
not include the farm of Mr. Carpenter, which was the 
subject of that suit at Albany. In November, 1749, 
Governor Wentworth sent another surveyor, Matthew 
Clessen, to survey the township of Bennington. That 
surveyor, commencing on the line previously surveyed 



New York Land Speculators. 69 

by Mr. Hazen, and, taking one of the monuments 
marked on the ground in that prior survey for his 
starting point, surveyed and marked on the ground 
the boundaries of the township of Bennington. 
Twelve years later, Governor Went worth sent another 
surveyor to run the lines of the township of Shaf tsbury, 
whose survey commenced on the line previously sur- 
veyed by Mr. Clessen for the boundaries of the town 
of Bennington, and who marked out on the ground the 
boundaries of Shaftsbury. Here, then, was a series of 
acts of occupation continuing for more than twenty 
years, in which the authorized agent of the owner of the 
land exercised upon that land visible acts of agency, pur- 
porting to be done under his authority as such agent. 
From that lapse of time and the absence of any interfer- 
ence on the part of the owner of the land, a ratification 
of his acts must be implied. It is true that these acts 
of possession were not such as would amount to a dis- 
seizin of the true owner, but they were sufficient to con- 
stitute an exercise of authority claimed under a power 
of attorney where there was no active exercise of au- 
thority under any other claim. To illustrate : if, in- 
stead of the king of England, George Washington had 
been the owner of the provinces of New Hampshire and 
New York and he had executed a power of attorney to 
John Adams, in which he states, ' ' I hereby authorize 
John Adams to sell my lands in the eastern [)art of the 
two provinces,"' and he had given a similar power of 
attorney to John Jay, in which he says, "I hereby au- 
thorise John Jay to sell my lands in the western part 
of my provinces," and, acting under that power of at- 
torney John Adams had sent out his surveyors and run 
and marked the lines just as (lovernor Wentworth did 



70 Vermont Settlers and 

on these New Hampshire grants, and the other agent, 
John Jay, had paid no attention to them ; there is no 
doubt that the deeds of John Adams would have given 
good title to any lands that had not been occupied un- 
der deeds from the other agent, and that until they 
struck the actual occupancy of other parties the title 
so made was valid. In the light of these principles 
of law, as they are now well settled, we can safely as- 
sert that the title of the New Hampshire settlers was 
not only an equitable but a legal title. 

This conclusion is supported by a great weight of 
authority, both in England and America. 

Among the numerous expressions of that opinion 
the following may be noted : 

1. The oiScial letter of Lord Shelburne, colonial sec- 
retary, in April, 1767, to the effect that the change of 
jurisdiction should make no difference in the property 
of settlers under former grants. Although the colonial 
secretaries were not always themselves lawyers, they 
had the benelit of advice of the law offices of the crown. 

2. The imofficial opinion of the privy council, in 
1767, at the time the official order was made prohibit- 
ing farther grants by the New York governors. 

8. The official opinion of Lord Dartmouth, secre- 
tary for the colonies, in reply to the letter of Governor 
Tryon citing the decision of the court in the Albany 
case in which he says : 

"I do not conceive the titles of the present claim- 
ants or possessors ought to have been determined upon 
any argument or reason drawn from a consideration of 
what were or were not the ancient limits of the colony 
of New York. Had the soil and jia-isdiction within 
the province of New York been vested in proprietaries 
as in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Bay, or 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 71 

other charter government!?, it would have been a differ- 
ent question ; but when both the soil and jurisdiction 
are in the crown to limit that jurisdiction and to 
dispose of the property in the soil in such manner as 
shall be thought most fit, and after what had passed, 
and the restrictions which had been given respecting 
the claims, as well on Lake Champlain, as in the dis- 
trict to the west of Connecticut river, by which the 
King had reserved to himself the consideration of those 
claims, I must still have the misfortune to think, that 
no steps ought to have been taken to the prejudice of 
the claimants under the original titles. " 

4. The official report of the board of trade made 
to the privy council, Dec. 3d, 1772, and the approval 
of the recommendations of that report by the privy 
council made in the April following. The privy 
council always included among its members some of 
the best jurists and lawyers in the kingdom. 

5. The decision of the English commissioners 
upon the application of John Monroe for reimburse- 
ment for his losses by reason of his adherence to the 
crown during the Revolutionary War. His lands, both 
in Vermont and New York, had been confiscated during 
the war. Under the provisions made by the English 
government, he was entitled to compensation for his 
losses. Upon consideration of his case, the commis- 
sioners decided to give him compensation for the lands 
he held in New York but refused to allow him anything 
for the lands he claimed in Vermont, because, they held, 
his title was not good, the land having been included in 
the grants made by Governor Wentworth. This ap- 
pears from a letter from Monroe to Duane written at 
the close of the war. It would seem that these com- 
missioners were the same as the commissioners of the 
board of trade having charge of colonial matters. 



72 Vekmont Settlers and 

6. The decision of the supreme court of Vermont 
in the case of Jacob v. Smead already referred to. 
This decision may be fairly offset against the decision 
of the New York court and the character and standing 
of Chief Justice Nathaniel Chipman is, to say the least, 
equal to that of the New York judges. There can be 
no claim of local interest in favor of the New York 
court against the Vermont court. 

T. There is, further, the fact that from the New 
Hampshire charter have been derived the unquestioned 
titles to most of the lands in the state of Vermont. It 
is true that in 1791 the legislature of the state of New 
York released its claims for a consideration paid in 
money. That release could not have affected the title of 
private individuals holding New York grants, unless it 
should be held that their accepltance of a dividend on the 
$30, 000 paid by Vermont should be regarded as an estop- 
pel against their subsequent claims. That the Vermont 
titles were held by virtue of the original New Hamp- 
shire charters, and not by virtue of any conveyance 
from New York, was established by two decisions of 
the supreme court of the United States, — those in favor 
of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
against the towns of New Haven and Pawlet, in which 
its title as grantee under the New Hampshire charters 
was sustained against the townships which had become 
grantees under an attempt of the state to give those 
public lands to the townships. It is true that the 
validity of the New Hampshire charters was not the 
subject of the contest in those decisions, and both par- 
ties to the contest admitted their validity. If, however, 
the New Hampshire grants had been wholly void by 
reason of the lack of jurisdiction of the governor of 



New York Land Speculatoks. 73 

New Hampshire over that territory, the supreme court 
of the United States should have taken judicial notice 
of that fact and could not have rendered judgment in 
favor of the Society. 

Although the presiding judge in that Albany trial 
bore a name that has since, in the person of his son, 
become illustrious in American jurisprudence, his opin- 
ion of the law is not entitled to the credit of an 
absolutely impartial judge. Governor Hall comments 
upon the fact that Judge Livingston was the grantee 
of a tract of 35,000 acres under the name of Camden, 
and for that reason the inference is that he was inter- 
ested in sustaining the New York titles. The facts, 
however, acquit the judge of any charge of impropriety 
on account of that interest. He received that patent 
the November preceding that trial, but the lands de- 
scribed in that patent had never been granted by the 
governor of New Hampshire ; and there was no ques- 
tion of the conflict between the grants of the two 
provinces. Judge Livingston's patent did not give 
him a good title, because his patent was given after the 
revocation by the king of the authority of the gov- 
ernor of New York to make conveyance of lands in the 
New Hampshire grants. Upon the final determination, 
these lands came to the state of Vermont and were 
granted in its sovereign capacity. No such question 
was presented in the trial at Albany and on that 
account there was no impropriety in Judge Livingston's 
hearing the case before him. There was another 
ground, however, upon which the propriety of Judge 
Livingston's action cannot be so well sustained. His 
brother-in-law, James Duane, was V^ery largely inter- 
ested in lands granted by the governors of New York 



74 Vermont Settlers and 

and the final decision of the case on trial would 
determine Mr. Duane's rights. Upon principles now 
well settled, Judge Livingston ought not to have sat in 
judgment in a suit in which his brother was so largely 
interested. At that time, however, these principles of 
judicial propriety were not as well settled as they are 
now. In the very next year Lord Dunmore as the 
governor of the province of New York and ex officio 
chancellor of the province, undertook to sit in judgment 
in an action in the name of the king against Governor 
Colden, in which he himself was the plaintiff in inter- 
est, and had the -hardihood to require a full trial and 
argument before himself; but before he came to the 
rendition of the judgment somebody told him more 
than he knew before about the authority of judges to 
decide cases wherein they were personally interested. 

The evidence offered by the defendants on the 
trial of those ejectment cases was a deed from the 
sovereign who was the common source of title of both 
claimants; which deed was prior in point of time to 
the title claimed by the plaintiff. The evidence of the 
plaintiffs had already shown that the defendants were 
in possession. The court excluded that evidence on 
the ground that it could take judicial notice that the 
land in question was then the province of New York 
and that the boundary of that province had, previous 
to 1761, been so clearly defined and established by 
competent authority as to exclude the governor of New 
Hampshire from acting as the agent of the king in 
selling that piece of land. It is true that the extent of 
the boundaries of the state or province within which a 
trial is had is ordinarily a question to be decided by 
the court as a matter of law, upon facts of public 



Neav Yokk Land Speculatoks. 75 

history of which the court is said to take judicial 
notice. The only fact upon which this ruling is 
claimed to be based is the fact of the grant by Charles 
II, in 1664, to the Duke of York with the designation 
of the western bank of the Connecticut River as its 
eastern boundary. The mistake of the court in that 
trial was, in its ruling upon the effect of the grant to 
the Duke of York. That grant did not purport to 
convey the land in dispute to the plaintiff's grantors. 
To avoid the effect of that conveyance to the Duke of 
York and his heirs, it was claimed, and that claim is 
elaborately stated in all the published statements of the 
ground of that claim, that the Dake's individual title 
was merged in the title of the sovereign when he be- 
came King James II. When the title under that grant 
became merged in the original title of the sovereign, 
the grant was extinguished and not perpetuated. The 
land in question came to the crown in 1686 entirely 
freed from all the effects of the grant to the Duke in 
1664 and of the re-grant ten years later. When 
that grant was extinguished by merger the effect was, 
that the land came back to the crown precisely as if no 
grant had ever been made. As we have already seen, 
the establishment of a province undiir the same name, 
New York, did not imply that the lands included in the 
province were the identical lands that had previously 
been named in the grant. The grant to the Duke of 
York covered all the land between the Connecticut 
River and Delaware Bay. That included most of the 
present state of New Jersey, part of Pennsylvania, 
but did not include more than a small part of the 
present state of New York. By strict construction the 
grant to the Duke of York would not include the cities 



76 Vermont Settlers anb 

of Albany or Schenectady, and by no construction 
could it be held to include the present city of Utica or 
any of the western part of the state. As we have 
already seen, the order of the king in council made in 
1764 was wholly prospective in its operation. It was 
not a judicial decision, but a legislative enactment. It 
could have no effect to avoid vested rights that had 
been legally acquired before its enactment. In deciding 
the question under consideration, — namely, the validity 
of the charter of Governor Wentworth, made in 1761, 
— the facts are to be considered the same as if the 
order of 1764 had never been made. 

Upon this subject even some writers of Vermont 
history have been misled into accepting as correct the 
extreme claims of the New York partisans. Mr. B. H. 
Hall at the beginning of chapter 6 of his History of 
Eastern Vermont, uses this language : 

"While New Netherland was a Dutch province, 
its northern limit had been placed at the river St. Law- 
rence and the fresh (Connecticut) river had washed its 
eastern borders. When Charles II gave the province 
of New York to his brother James, its area included all 
the land from the west side of the Connecticut river to 
the east side of Delaware bay. The governments of 
Massachusetts and Connecticut had in several instances 
encroached upon the territory claimed by New York, 
but the differences resulting from these trespasses had 
usually been amicably settled or at least temporarily 
adjusted. Never until now had there been any attempt 
to deprive New York by systematic action of rights and 
dominion which she claimed as her own." 

And again, on page 130 : 

"By trespasses Massachusetts and Connecticut 
had extended their limits far beyond the line assigned 
them by the charter, but they had acknowledged the 



New Yokk Land Specui.atous. 77 

encroachment and by treaties New York had ceded 
to them the land on which they had attempted to 
usurp authority." 

This language of Mr. Hall is, most likely, taken 
from the statement of the claim of New York reported 
by Crean Brush to the New York Assembly in 1773, 
which was said to have been drawn up by Mr. Duane 
and which was afterwards published and extensively 
circulated as a statement of the grounds on which the 
New York claims were based. It will be very difficult 
to find an instance where any reputable historian has 
accepted a partisan statement with more childlike confi- 
dence than Mr. Hall has accepted this statement of the 
New York claims, and it would be equally difficult to 
find an instance in which that confidence was less 
deserved. 

While it is true that the Dutch did formerly claim 
to the Connecticut river, that claim was resisted by the 
province of Connecticut, and the Dutch were forced to 
yield, and did yield their claim ; and the boundary 
between Dutch New York and Connecticut was settled 
by the treaty at Hartford in 1650, by which the boun- 
dary was established as a line ten miles east of the 
Hudson river. That line was accepted by the Dutch 
when they retook New York in 1673. 

During the same year in which the grant to the 
Duke of York was made, 1664, the boundary between 
New York and Connecticut was established by commis- 
sioners sent by the king, of whom Governor Nichols 
of New York was one, and the boundary between the 
two provinces was fixed as, in general terms, a line tweu- 
y miles from the Hudson river. This award recites 
that the commissioners had heard the parties and they do 



78 Vekmont Settlers and 

"Order and declare that the creek or river called 
Mamaroneck, which is reputed to be about thirteen miles 
to the east of Westchester and a line drawn from the 
east point or side where the fresh water falls into the 
salt, at high water mark, north, northwest to the line of 
Massachusetts be the western bounds of the said colony 
of Connecticut. All plantations l3'ing westward of 
that creek and line so drawn to be under his royal 
highness' government, and all plantations lying east- 
ward of that creek and line to be under the government 
of Connecticut." 

It was claimed there was a mistake in the language 
of that line, and another adjustment was attempted in 
1683. This was recited in a report of the English 
board of trade to King William, dated March 3, 
1700, which report designated the line that now exists 
between New York and Connecticut, and the line so 
recommended by the board of trade was authoritatively 
established by order of the king on the 4th day of 
March, 1700. This line was resurveyed in 1731. 
Upon examination of the maps of New York and Con- 
necticut it will be seen that there is, in the south- 
western corner, a part of Connecticut that extends 
further towards the Hudson river than the rest of the 
state and within less than twenty miles of the river. 
To offset this, or as "equivalent" lands, Connecticut 
yielded a strip about two miles wide in the western 
part of Litchfield count}' ; and it will be seen by the 
map that on the eastern part of Dutchess county is a 
narrow strip that extends as far north as the north line 
of Connecticut to the east of Columbia county. This 
little strip of land constitutes what is termed "The 
Oblong "and was given to New York as equivalent 
for the land taken by Connecticut within less than 



Neav York Land Speculators. 79 

twenty miles of the Hudson river. The twenty mile 
line was, in substance, established as the boundary to 
which the provinces were entitled ; and the only ac- 
knowledgment by Connecticut that it extended beyond 
its boundary relates to that oblong strip for which this 
equivalent was given. 

In respect to Massachusetts, the quotation is 
equally unfortunate. Massachusetts never acknowl- 
edged any title of New York to the lands now occupied 
by that state. There was a controversy between the 
two provinces for many years. That was finally 
settled by reference to arbitrators or referees agreed 
upon by the provinces. On the 18th of May, 1773, 
the governors of the two provinces made an agreement 
accepting the line fixed upon by these referees, by 
which it was declared that, 

"A line beginning at a place fixed upon by the 
two governments of New York and Connecticut on or 
about A. D. 1731 for the northwestern corner of a tract 
of land commonly called the oblong, or equivalent 
land, and running from said corner north twenty-one 
degrees, ten minutes and thirty seconds east to the 
north line of the Massachusetts Bay, shall at all times 
hereafter be the line of jurisdiction between the prov- 
ince of Massachusetts Bay and the said province of 
New York." 

This was substantially a line twenty miles from the 
Hudson river. Instead of acknowledging any encroach- 
ment, both the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecti- 
cut always insisted upon, and after the close of the 
Revolutionary War secured, large cessions of land on 
their charter claims. In 1786 the state of Connecti- 
cut received from the general government the cession 
of lands in the Western Reserve, in what is now the 



80 Vermont Settleks and 

state of Ohio, amounting to about four millions of 
acres. In 1784 the state of Massachusetts brought, in 
what was then termed the federal court, its proper ac- 
tion against the state of New York, in which it claimed 
large quantities of land under its charter grants from 
the crown. To this claim an answer was made by Mr. 
Duane in behalf of the state of New York, and his brief 
is printed at length in the third volume of the collec- 
tions of the New York Historical Society. The brief, 
however, was not very satisfactory because the New 
York authorities, without permitting the case to come 
to trial, settled the matter by conceding to Massachu- 
setts between five and six million of acres of land in 
western New York, a territory as large as the whole of 
the present state of Massachusetts and at that time the 
most valuable land in the country. 

Some writers of Vermont history have carried the 
impression that the action of the New York authorities 
was not very oppressive. Judge Daniel Chipman, who 
•about fifty years ago wrote the life of his brother, 
Nathaniel Chipman, asserts that confirmation of the 
New Hampshire grants could have been procured at the 
rate of 70 pounds New York money a township; and 
Mr. Davis, who wrote the history of Cumberland county, 
published in the last volume of the series commenced 
by Miss Hemmenway, states that the action of the New 
York government did not seem to be " very oppres- 
sive. " 

The action of the New York government with re- 
gard to confirmatory titles was by no means uniform. 
The settlers of Bennington county could not have pro- 
cured a valid confirmation of their charters at any price, 
because the colonial officers had sold land within every 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 81 

one of those townships, before the settlers received no- 
tices of any claim against their titles. Not only had 
they sold lands within each township, but they had sold 
almost every acre on which improvements were made 
by the settlers. When Captain Robinson and Mr. 
French went to New York in 1765 they were not in- 
formed of all the facts that have since been shown to 
have been true. The petition prepared by Captain 
Robinson before he left for England stated that they 
found confirmation could not be procured without their 
paying the fees of office at the rate of 25 pounds New 
York money for every 1,000 acres of land. This was 
about nine times the' sum named by Judge Chipman. 
The first confirmatory charter that was granted 
was that of the town of Chester, made by Governor 
Moore in July 1766. Governor Moore issued confirma- 
tory patents for six townships. It appears from the 
letter of Governor Golden to the colonial secretary, 
dated January 4tb, 1770, that Governor Moore refused 
to pass any patents unless his full fees were paid; that, 
before the arrival of Governor Moore he, Golden, had 
prepared patents for the confirmation of several town- 
ships and had agreed with the proprietors on a reduc- 
tion of the regular fees; but that he was prevented from 
putting the seal to any of them by the arrival of Gov- 
ernor Moore, who afterwards took his full fees for one 
of the grants which had been nearly ready for the seal 
before he came. This must have been the township of 
Chester. It appears that Colonel Thomas Chandler, 
as the representative of the proprietors of Chester, then 
called New Flamstead, went to New York in October, 
1765, and made application for confirmation of his char- 
ter. The new charter which he got bears date the July 



82 Vekmont Settlers and 

following. At the convention held at Westminster in 
July 1777 Colonel Chandler was present as a member; 
and the record shows that he was also a member of the 
committee appointed to make a publication of the reas- 
ons for the establishment of a new state. The report 
of that committee was made to the adjourned session of 
that convention held at Windsor in June following. 
That report contained a statement of grievances, framed 
upon the model of the Declaration of Independence. 
Beside other complaints, was the statement that the 
New York authorities had refused to give confirmations 
of the New Hampshire charters except upon the pay- 
ment of $2,300 for a single township. That statement 
was copied by Ira Allen in the preamble to the consti- 
tution of the new state written by him the next fall. 
This was undoubtedly the sum demanded of Colonel 
Chandler for the confirmation of this township of Ches- 
ter, As that township was larger than the average, 
containing over 31,000 acres, it appears that, notwith 
standing the statement of Governor Colden, there was 
a small sum remitted from the regular charges. It is 
evident they got all Colonel Chandler could pay. He 
was bankrupt all the rest of his life. For the other 
five townbhips there is every reason to believe that Gov- 
ernor Colden was correct in his statement that full fees 
were demanded and received. We have already seen 
that Colonel Wells demanded for the New York gov- 
ernor $1,440 for the confirmation of the charter of the 
present town of Dummerston. That township was only 
a third of the 48,000 acres, called the ''equivalent" 
lands, and the sum demanded, $1,440, was the full 
amount of $90 a thousand acres. After the death of 
Governor Moore it is undoubtedly true that some de- 



New York Land Speculatoks. 83 

ductions were made from the usual fees but, as the col- 
onial officers were naturally careful to make no record 
of such deductions, it does not appear just how much 
they amounted to. Ira Allen, in his history publish- 
ed in London some twenty years later, states that the 
amount claimed for confirmatory charters was one-half 
the usual fees. 

This statement has been followed by other writers, 
but there does not appear to be any substantial grounds 
for it. On the 26th of January, 1773, a petition was 
made by about four hundred settlers on the east side 
of the mountains to confirm the titles of the townships 
in which they were settled for one-half the usual fees of 
office. This petition was refused. There had then been 
confirmations of fourteen or fifteen townships. No 
confirmatory grants were made after the date of that 
petition. The only confirmatory grants of which any 
records have been kept, where the township had been 
settled previous to the application for confirmation, 
was that of the township of Windsor. It appears from 
the record of the suit before referred to that Colonel 
Stone, the agent of the settlers to perfect and procure 
the confirmation, sold 3,000 acres of land and with the 
avails of that sale got his confirmatory charter. Of 
what he received for the land or how much he paid for 
fees, there is no record. It is not probable, however, 
that the amount could have been much more than half the 
regular fees. On the other hand Mr. Knowlton, in be- 
half of the proprietors of the township of Newfane, 
went to New York in the winter of 1772, before any 
settlement had been made on this township, and suc- 
ceeded in getting a confirmation, not only of the title to 
the Newfane land, but also of all the franchises in the 



84 Vermont Settlers and 

New Hampshire charter, including that of the New En- 
gland town meeting. Mr. Knowlton in the negotiation 
for that confirmation had the advantage of the New 
York government. He had not put himself in their 
power at all; had made no improvements, and, unless 
he could get a charter on his own terms, was perfectly 
free to abandon his township. The time of his appli- 
cation was just after the failure of the sheriff of Albany 
county, with his immense posse, to execute his writ of 
possession against the Bennington settlers; and it was 
while Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys were 
having free scope in their Revolutionary proceedings. 
It was after they had undertaken to arrest Remember 
Baker and he had been rescued by ten men within a short 
distance of where the present city of Troy now stands. 
In this state of things Mr. Knowlton had probably little 
difficulty in getting a very liberal deduction from the 
usual fees. He was a very bright man and fully capa- 
ble of taking advantage of everything in his favor. If 
there ever was a confirmatory charter granted for 70 
pounds New York money, as stated by Judge Chipman, 
this was undoubtedly the one. That remission was 
granted, not in consideration of the hardships of the set- 
tlers, but from the conviction that, unless they accepted 
what was offered, the royal officers would get nothing 
in the shape of fees, because at that time they could 
find no speculator who had the hardihood to undertake 
to buy lands so close as Newfane was to the other set- 
tlements. Where the settlers had occupied and made 
expensive improvements they had put themselves in the 
power of the government. Their application for the 
remission of half the fees was refused, because it was 



New York Land Speculators. 85 

believed a greater amount could be extorted from them 
and that they would yield rather than submit to the 
risk of losing not only their lands but their improve 
ments. 



Vermont Settlers and 



CHAPTER VII. 

ATTEMPTS TO ENFORCE JUDGMENTS, AND FURTHER 
GRANTS BY NEW YORK GOA'ERNORS. 

The decision of the court in those suits at Albany 
was followed by vigorous efforts to enforce the judg- 
ments, and new judgments were rendered the next 
term of that court. Commissioners were sent again to 
Mr. Breakenridge's farm to make partition, and they 
were met by men making open and forcible resistance. 
Several of these men were again indicted at New York 
for riot, and one of them, Mr. Silas Robinson, was 
arrested and imprisoned for several months. The 
sheriff succeeded in executing a writ of possession 
against Mr. Carpenter of Shaftsbury, but the tenant he 
put in possession found the possession too uncomfort- 
able to retain. He did succeed in getting into the 
house of Mr. Rose of Manchester, but the neighbors 
gathered around in so great numbers that he very 
hastily left and directed Mrs. Rose to keep possession 
for the claimant, which direction she forgot to obey. 
He also attempted to take possession of Mr. Breaken- 
ridge's farm, but he was met by armed men, who, in 
language not at all ambiguous, told him that if he 
persisted in the attempt they would blow out his 
brains. Matters had come to such a point that it was 
necessary to determine which was the stronger party 



New York Land Speculators. 87 

And SO on the 18th of July, 1771, Sheriff Ten Eyck of 
Albany gathered the largest posse comltatus ever 
assembled in the province of New York. In that posse 
were included four lawyers, one of whom had been one 
of the lawyers for the defendant in the ejectment suits, 
the mayor of the city, and other high officials. Ira 
Allen, in his history of Vermont and in the preamble 
to the Vermont constitution, written by him, states 
that the number in this force was seven hundred and 
fifty, and this statement has been frequently copied by 
subsequent writers. It is very natural to exaggerate 
the numbers of any body of men, especially those of a 
hostile force. Governor Hall, quoting from a letter 
written by Mr. Yates of Albany to Attorney General 
Kempe and Mr. Duane, fixes the number at about three 
hundred when it left Albany, with some additions on 
the way. This statement is probably more nearly 
correct. The settlers had notice of the approach of 
this large force and prepared themselves accordingly. 
They gathered togeth«^r, as Ira Allen states, to the 
number of three hundred. But here again the estimate 
must be too large, because at that time there could not 
have been three hundred male settlers obtainable within 
reasonable distance. It does not appear that Baker or 
either of the Aliens were there, and no fecord is made 
of the organization that was had. Seth Warner must 
have been there, and Robert Cochran of Rupert was 
undoubtedly present. Both of these men, during the 
Revolutionary War, became colonels in the continental 
army and developed great capacity and showed un- 
doubted courage as military leaders. A large propor- 
tion of the settlers had been soldiers in the French War 
and were not afraid of the smell of powder. Ira Allen 



88 Veemont Settlers and 

gives some details of a kind of ambuscade that was 
formed in the woods to meet the attack. From the 
account given by Mr, Yates, in his letter written the 
next day, it would seem that the settlers had been 
arranged in a skillful manner for defense, and had 
taken advantage of ground and of the cover of the 
trees. When the sheriff reached the vicinity, he was 
refused possession of the land. Parleys were had. 
Mayor Cuyler and Attorney Yates undertook to reason 
with the settlers ; but as it appeared that if they 
yielded to that reasoning, they would, every one of 
them, be obliged to give up to the speculator claimants 
their homes and, in fact, all they had in the world, 
it is not surprising that they failed to appreciate the 
reasoning of the mayor and the attorney. The result 
was, that the negotiations were unavailing and the 
sheriff gave the order to advance. At this particular 
period, in the expressive language of Ira Allen, the 
men composing the sheriff's posse discovered that they 
had no interest in the matter and refused to advance ; 
and so, without the firing of gun, this large posse 
retreated. Indeed, it was very wise for them to do so, 
because, from the courage and fighting capacity shown 
by these Green Mountain boys a few years later, it is 
certain the attack could not have succeeded. This was 
the last attempt to subdue the settlers by any open 
attack. Frequent applications were afterwards made 
for regular troops, but the colonial secretary very 
promptly refused them and stated that troops ought 
not to be called out in such a contest. 

Upon the death of Governor Moore in September, 
1Y69, Governor Golden again succeeded to the govern- 
ment. Shortly afterwards he procured from the 



New York Land Speculators. 89 

colonial council a kind of declaration that they under- 
stood the order of Lord Shelburne prohibiting further 
grants to refer only to those lands that had been in- 
cluded in the New Hampshire charters ; and, acting 
upon that construction, during the time intervening 
between his taking the office and the arrival of Gov- 
ernor Dunraore in October, 1770, he succeeded in 
making grants of nearly 600,000 acres of Vermont 
lands. It is not probable that he succeeded in getting 
full fees for those grants, but undoubtedly he made 
them for just what he could get. 

The new governor was John Murray, Earl of 
Dunmore, a Scottish peer, needy and unscrupulous, 
who had come to this country to amass a fortune ; and 
to that end he was willing to sacrifice every other con- 
sideration. His first entry into the colony was marked 
by an attempt to extort from Governor Golden one-half 
the fees he had received from land grants after the 
second of January, the date of Governor Danmore's 
commission. Naturally Golden refused to divide, 
whereupon Governor Dunmore caused a suit to be com- 
menced in the name of the king to compel this division. 
He had the hardihood to order this suit to be heard 
and argued before himself as chancellor. Among the 
Golden papers published by the New York Historical 
Society is a copy of this bill in chancery and of the 
answer of Governor Golden and the brief of his attor- 
ney, Mr. Duune. Before Governor Dunmore came to 
the rendition of final judgment he apparently discovered 
the impropriety of sittmg in judgment in his own case 
and he never rendered the judgment. Although the 
statement of this extraordinary proceeding seems almost 
incredible there can be no doubt of its correctness. It 



90 A^ERMONT Settlers and 

is a good illustration of the ignorance and reckless 
greed of the colonial governors. 

Governor Dunmore at once proceeded with the 
business of granting charters and in so doing utterly 
ignored the prohibition of the king against granting 
any lands that had been included in the New Hamp- 
shire charters. It is probable that he relied upon the 
fact that Lord Shelburne and the Chatham administra- 
tion had been removed and that he expected their high 
tory successors would overlook his violation of his 
orders. In this he was disappointed. During his 
short terra of office from October, 1770, to July, 1771, 
he made grants of between 400,000 and 500,000 acres, 
every foot of which land was included in the prior 
grants by New Hampshire. Among these grants was 
one of 51,000 acres of land in what is now Addison 
county, embracing parts of Middlebury, Salisbury and 
Leicester. This patent was issued on the 8th day of 
July, 1771, the very day on which he surrendered his 
office to his successor. Five days afterwards every 
one of those grantees named in that patent conveyed 
their shares to Governor Dunmore himself. 

The order of the king in council prohibiting 
further grants by the New York government had given 
great encouragement to the settlers and holders of the 
New Hampshire patents, and from that date settlers 
began to come into the grants in considerable numbers. 
Settlements were commenced in the town of Dorset, in 
Bennington county, and in the adjoining town of 
Danby. No sooner had there been considerable im- 
provements begun in these towns than application was 
made for a New York patent of their lands. 

There was a proclamation of the king made in 



N^w YoKK Land Speculators. 91 

October, 1763, giving grants of lands to officers and 
soldiers of the army who had served in America in the 
then late war with France. By these proclamations 
field officers were entitled to 5,000 acres, captains to 
3,000 acres, subalterns or staff officers to 2,000 acres, 
non-commissioned officers to 200 acres, and privates to 
50 acres. These grants were to be issued without the 
payment of any fees. A large portion of the troops en- 
titled to those patents were disbanded in New York city 
and, as they were principally from Europe, were very 
ready to dispose of their claims on such terms as were 
offered them. Accordingly nearly all of these claims 
went into the hands of speculators, just as soldiers' 
land warrants in our country were a few years ago 
a common subject of speculation. These land warrants 
were undoubtedly bought in for small amounts, prob- 
ably less than the amount of fees for ordinary grants. 
At any rate the speculators procured very much the 
greatest share of them. After the settlement and 
improvements of Dorset and Danby had been com- 
menced, a tract of land called Chatham -was granted by 
the New York government, nominally to certain sol- 
diers named. This tract embraced 12,750 acres, of 
which 10,000 belonged to James Duane. Application 
had, been made to Governor Golden for this patent, but 
he had refused it on the ground that the lands had been 
previously granted by New Hampshire. After the 
arrival of the Earl of Danmore as governor, however, 
there was no hesitation in granting all that was asked. 
This patent was dated March 14, 1771. Another 
patent of a tract of 15,350 acres in Rupert and Pawlet, 
all of which belonged to Mr. Duane, was granted 
June 14, 1771. The settlement of Pawlet had been 



92 Vermont Settlers and , 

commenced about three years previous. That of 
Rupert was probably commenced in 1770. The settle- 
ment of Rutland was commenced in 1770, and of 
Pittsford about two years earlier. On the 3rd of 
April, 1771, Governor Dunmore issued a patent for a 
tract of land, called Social borough, about six miles 
wide and extending thirteen miles north and south, em- 
bracing 48,000 acres and covering nearly all of the 
townships of Rutland and Pittsford. The patentees of 
this patent, a few days afterwards, conveyed their 
shares to New York speculators, one of whom, James 
Duane, received conveyance of 15,000 acres. A letter 
is preserved from his surveyor to Mr. Duane complain- 
ing that the settlers on those lands would not permit 
him to run out the lands included in this grant. This 
letter was afterwards forwarded by Mr. Duane to the 
colonial council. If he had believed that the order of 
that council of May 22, 1765, pretending to forbid the 
return of any lands in actual occupation of settlers, 
was intended to be obeyed, he would not have for- 
warded that letter. From these instances it seems 
that Mr, Duane had a very keen information of the 
growth of the settlements, and was very eager to 
get title covering the lands on which these settlers had 
made their improvements. And yet Mr. Duane was 
the man who was instrumental in inserting in the letter 
of Governor Moore to Lord Shelburne the reference to 
the order of the New York council of May 22, 1765, 
prohibiting surveyors from making returns of any 
lands that were occupied by settlers under the New 
Hampshire grants. His zeal was very much quickened 
by the decision of the court at Albany, but after the 
repulse of the sheriff with his posse at Bennington, 



New York Land Speculatoks. 93 

even he seemed to have appreciated the fact that it was 
not absolutely certain that he could hold the improved 
farms of the settlers. From that date he does not 
appear to have taken any more o;rants of land occupied 
by New Hampshire claimants, nor of any other lands, 
except a part interest in a patent covering what is now 
the town of Clarendon, which he seems to have taken 
in combination with some settlers under the Lydius 
grant. Mr. Duane took the leading part in favor of 
the New York claimants in all their contests against the 
Vermont settlers. He was counsel for the plaintiffs in 
all the ejectment suits that were brought at Albany. 
In a memoir of his life appended to the fourth volume 
of the documentary history of New York, it is stated 
that he prepared all the arguments to sustain the New 
York title that were presented in reports to the New 
York assembly during the contests. He also prepared 
similar arguments which were presented to the Conti- 
nental Congress in opposition to the claims of Vermont 
for admission to the Union. He was also counsel for 
the state of New York in the suit brought by Massa- 
chusetts in the federal court to assert its title to lands 
within the jurisdiction of New York, and his brief in 
that suit appears to be mainly a rehash of his papers 
upon the claims of the Vermont settlers. He was 
personally interested in the grants of the New York 
governors and he seems to have persistently selected 
lands that had been occupied and improved. His 
biographer states that he had purchased 6-1,000 acres 
of the Vermont lands, for which he had paid $8,000. 
That sum was at the rate of 12^ cents an acre which 
was more than the actual value of unimproved lands at 
that time. He could have got grants of unimproved 



94 Vermont Settlers and 

lands to any extent for the usual fees of the New York 
officials which were about nine cents an acre. If he 
paid the amount claimed, it must have been in the pur- 
chase of some soldiers' titles which had been located on 
improved lands. In' the same biography reference is 
made to a statement of John Adams, that Mr. Diiane 
claimed that his Vermont lands were worth $100,000. 
If he could have recovered those lands they were 
undoubtedly worth that amount, because the improve- 
ments njade by the settlers must, in the aggregate, 
have been alone worth nearly that sum. If his claim 
had been legal, it would have been very unjust and 
oppressive to enforce it. John Adams, who was 
associated with him in the Continental Congress, records 
a whining statement of his that he had invested in 
those Vermont lands almost all his means. He was 
not entitled to any sympathy on account of the un- 
profitable result of those investments, neither is the 
complaint of his biographer that his heirs received 
in the final settlement only between two and three 
thousand dollars entitled to any consideration, because 
he was not, either in law or equity, entitled to 
anything. 

Shortly after his arrival in this country Lord 
Dun more Avas appointed to the government of the 
province of Virginia. He was so eager to retain 
his hold on the fees for the New York land grants that 
he waited until the arrival of his successor before 
giving up his place. 

Tlie successor of Lord Dunmore was Sir William 
Tryon. He had been governor of North Carolina. 
Governor Tryon brought with him very explicit in- 
structions prohibiting the grants of any land on the 



New York Land Speculators. 95 

western side of the Connecticut river within the district 
formerly claimed by the province of New Hampshire. 
That direction was incorporated into a specific article 
of the standing instructions to the New York governors 
numbered "Article 49." This article was laid before 
the New York council on the 24th of July. Its ex- 
press terms were : 

" It is therefore our will and pleasure that you do 
take effectual care for the observance of said order in 
council ; that you do not upon pain of our highest 
displeasure presume to make any grant whatever or 
pass any warrant of survey of any part of the said 
land until our further will and pleasure shall be sig- 
nified to you concerning the same. " 

Governor Tryon, although professing to be friendly 
and kind, was in fact artful and treacherous. Mr. 
Bancroft describes him as the "selfish Tryon, who 
under a smooth exterior concealed the heart of a 
savage. " 

The first grant of lands made by Governor Tryon 
was 10,000 acres in what was then called Hinsdale, 
now Vernon, which was granted to a Colonel Howard. 
It will be remembered that Hinsdale was the western 
part of a township lying on both sides of the Connecti- 
cut river which had been settled by Massachusetts 
previous to the adjustment of the boundary in 1741. 
As it was a fractional township the grant of 10,000 
acres covered very nearly the whole township. Within 
it were two forts and near these were settlements 
which had continued for nearly forty years. 

In making this grant Governor Tryon pretended 
to be governed by an order or, as he termed it, a 
mandamus from the home government directing him to 



96 Vermont Settlers and 

permit Colonel Howard to select ten thousand acres 
wherever he chose. He also pretended to have made 
great efforts to induce Colonel Howard to forbear 
selecting that land and to have offered him six hundred 
pounds of his own money if he would desist. These 
claims were mere pretensions. All the Vermont lands 
had been withdrawn from any selection by force of the 
Article 49 just quoted. Instead of being compelled by 
the order or mandamus of the home government to 
grant this patent he was expressly and peremptorily 
prohibited from so doing. There was no order that 
permitted any selection of improved lands nor of any 
lands in the actual occupation of adverse claimants. 
From these facts and the correspondence of the gov- 
ernor with the home government it is certain that he 
never in good faith offered Colonel Howard six hundred 
pounds of his own money or any other sum to desist 
from that selection and his pretense of so doing was 
only to amuse the settlers and make them believe 
he was their friend in these transactions. From all the 
facts of those transactions it would seem that Howard 
was a "fresh "Englishman who was encouraged by the 
"ring" around the New York governor to make or 
pretend to make the selection of that township for the 
purpose of an experiment to ascertain how far it would 
be safe to attempt to get possession of the improved 
lands on the east side of the mountains. His own 
correspondence which has been preserved is entirely 
inconsistent with his professions of friendship to the 
settlers. 

Governor Tryon did not succeed, however, in 
disposing of as much land as his predecessor had. The 
sturdy resistance made by the Bennington settlers 



New York Land Speculators. 97 

seems to have abated the zeal of the New York specu- 
lators ; and, of course, the governor could not sell 
unless he could tind somebody to purchase. During 
the first year of his administration he succeeded in 
disposing of about two hundred thousand acres of land 
in Vermont in direct violation of his instructions. 
Beside other grants he issued a patent of a township of 
thirtj^-two thousand acres by the name of Norbury 
in the vicinity of the present towns of Calais and 
Worcester. That patent was issued to thirty-two indi- 
viduals among whom were James Duane, Crean Brush, 
Secietaiy Banyar, ard other noted land speculators. 
All these grantees, however, on the second day after 
the date of the patent, conveyed their entire interest to 
the governor himself. It is a matter of satisfaction 
that Governor Tryon made no profit out of this 
grant. 

During his administration Governor Tryon re- 
ceived frequent letters from the officers of the home 
government expressing in unequivocal language their 
dissatisfaction with the proceedings of the New York 
authorities. On December 3, ]772, the board of trade 
made an elaborate report to a committee of the privy 
councd, reviewing in full the facts in relation to the 
New Hampshire grants. This report notices ''the 
great injury and oppression suffered by the settlers 
from the irregular conduct of the governor and council 
of New York in granting warrants of survey for lands 
under their actual improvements." The report also 
notices the exorbitant fees demanded for grants of 
lands which are by the ordinance of 1710 "considerably 
larger than what are at this day received for the same 
service in any other of the colonies.'' And the report 



98 Vermont Settlers and 

proceeds to state that the fees exacted at that time by 
the governor and other colonial officers were more than 
double the amount allowed by the ordinance of 1710 
and in many instances were not far short of the real 
value of the fee simple. That report also proceeds as 
follows : " We think we are justified in supposing that 
it has been from a consideration of the advantage 
arising from these exorbitant fees that his Majesty's 
governors of Xew York have of late years taken upon 
themselves upon the most unwarrantable pretenses to 
elude the restrictions contained in his Majesty's in- 
structions with regard to the quantity of land to be 
granted to any one person * - * * an abuse 
which has now grown to that height as well to deserve 
your Lordship's attention." 

On the 9th day of the same December Lord Dart- 
mouth wrote to Governor Tryon expressing substan- 
tially the same views as those embraced in the report 
of the board of trade. He had before that time com- 
plained to Governor Tryon of his conduct in granting 
lands "annexed to New York by the determination of 
the boundary with New Hampshire." 

The report of the board of trade and their recom- 
mendations for the adjustment of the difficulties were 
confirmed by the privy council in the April following. 
Among the recommendations for the adjustment of the 
difficulty was one that all actual settlers should be 
quieted in the possession of the lands they occupied 
without regard to the origin of their titles ; that the 
charters of the New Hampshire townships which had 
not been occupied by claimants under New York 
should be confirmed to the original proprietors and 
those claiming under them without reference to any 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 99 

subsequent New York patent of the land; and that 
such subsequent patentees should be indemnified for 
their loss by grants of other lands. The report had 
recognized the fact that a positive determination of 
conflicting claims of lands could only be made by 
decree of a court or tribunal having jurisdiction and so 
the order of the king and council approving that report 
was not in the nature of an order or command but 
a proposition to the New York government, which, 
being deemed just and equitable by the king and 
council, it was hoped would be assented to and carried 
into execution by that government. This order was 
communicated by Lord Dartmouth to Governor Tryon 
with instructions to have it carried into effect. Instead 
of complying with these instructions Governor Tryon 
wrote a long reply insisting that the plan proposed was 
unjust to the New York patentees and impracticable. 
The reason why the proposed adjustment was not 
acceptable to the New York speculators was that it 
gave those speculators no benefit from the improve- 
ments macje by the settlers. That proposed adj ustment 
simply gave the speculators other unimproved lands in 
the place of those included in their New York patents. 
As has been seen Mr. Duane claimed that his Vermont 
lands were worth $100,000. The effect of that adjust- 
ment would have been to reduce the value of his claims 
to about $5,000. The real objection of the speculators 
was that by the proposed adjustment they were pre- 
vented from getting an unfair advantage of the settlers. 
During the correspondence between Lord Dartmouth 
and Governor Tryon reference was made to the de- 
cision of the New York courts which brought out the 
opinion of Lord Dartmouth above quoted. 



Vermont Settlers and 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RESISTANCE OF SETTLERS, A REVOLUTION. 

In the meantime settlers were taking active meas- 
ures to protect themselves. They had no alternative. 
If they yielded they must submit to such terms as 
were exacted. What would be the nature of those 
exactions may be inferred from the demand made by 
Colonel Howard of the inhabitants of Hinsdale. His 
proposal was that the settlers should lease their lands 
for five years at the rent of one penny sterling- per 
acre; another five years for one shilling per acre, and 
at the expiration of that time to come to a new 
agreement, which, of course, meant an eviction in case 
they declined to comply 'with whatever terms might be 
exacted. In one of his letters to Lord Dartmouth 
Governor Try on states that this offer was ' ' too gen- 
erous to leave room for complaint." If that was 
generous treatment, ordinary or harsh treatment must 
have been very much to be dreaded. Upon these facts 
the only course left to the settlers was that of resist- 
ance. The remainder of the story might be told in 
these few words : The resistance was successful and 
ended in a revolution. 

Shortly after the repulse of Sheriff Ten Eyck the 
settlers made their organization for defense. Here 
commenced the career which made Ethan Allen famous 



New York Land Speculators. ' lol 

He had great skill in organization, was a man of great 
personal energy and enthusiasm, and he had the faculty 
of impressing his associates with the same energy and 
enthusiasm. During the three or four years that 
ensued he so perfected the organization of the settlers 
and so infused into them his own zeal and confidence as 
to make them the most effective and reliable of all the 
military organizations in the colonies. Their prowess 
was such as to justify what was afterwards said of 
them by General Burgoyne, who, without intending it 
as a compliment, described them as the most active and 
rebellious race of people on the continent. Military 
companies were organized in each settlement. Among 
the captains of these companies were men who after- 
wards acquired fame in the Revolutionary War. Such 
were Seth Warner, who was colonel of the regiment of 
Green Mountain Boys, Remember Baker, who was 
killed early in the war, and Robert Cochran, who 
commanded a New York regiment in the continental 
army. All these companies were under the command 
of Ethan Allen with the title of colonel. 

These organizations in carrying out the plan of 
defending their land titles, not only resisted the sheriffs 
in their attempt to take forcible possession, but also 
drove off the New York surveyors wherever they were 
found. They prevented those who had been appointed 
to office from performing the duties of their office. 
They also prevented the occupation of any of the 
New Hampshire grants by settlers under a New York 
title. 

We have seen that in 17i4 one Lydius had ac- 
quired what was pretended to be a conveyance of a 
tract of Vermont land, which he claimed had been 



102 Vermont Settlers and 

confirmed by Governor Shirley of Massachusetts. 
Lydius succeeded in getting some Rhode Island people 
to take deeds from him. Those purchasers had made 
some settlements in Clarendon, and perhaps one or two 
within the present town of Rutland. They very soon 
found that their Lydius titles were worthless, and 
further, that there was serious conflict between the 
New York and the New Hampshire titles. Relying 
probably on the decision of the court of All)any, they 
deemed it best to take a New York title, and so they 
united with Mr. Duane in taking the patent of the 
tract called Durham. The Verraonters could not per- 
mit New York titles to be held in their midst, and they 
forced these settlers to buy again from New Hamp- 
shire. The principal holder of the New Hampshire 
title was Colonel Willard. He had been connected 
with the command of Fort Dummer and was interested 
in the New Hampshire titles of several townships on 
the east side of the mountains, and of one or two on 
the west side, and he also held some New York 
patents. Allen, while requiring these Clarendon set- 
tlers to get title from the New Hampshire patentees, 
at the same time assured them that if Colonel Willard 
attempted to demand anything more than a fair price 
for the land without the improvements, he would 
protect them against that extortion. This was a kind 
of illegal justice. Most of these Clarendon settlers 
remained, and became some of the most worthy settlers 
of the new state. A Colonel Reid got patent of 
seven thousand acres, covering the present city of 
Vergennes. He had obtained a warrant of survey as 
early as 1766 and took forcible possession, driving off 
a Mr. Pangborn, who had settled on the falls and built 



New York Land Si'eculators. 103 

a mill. The Green Mountain Boys, as they were 
termed, restored Pangborn to the possession of his saw- 
mill and pulled down the grist mill built by Reid. 
Reid's men rallied and retook the place. Allen's men 
took it back by force, and again pulled down the grist 
mill and broke up the mill-stones, so they could not be 
replaced. When the Green Mountain Boys found New 
York surveyors, they took their compasses and chains 
away from them and sent them o&. If that was 
not enough, they applied "the beech seal," or, as they 
sometimes paraphrased it, chastised them with ' ' twigs 
of the wilderness. " Some settlers under the New York 
patents had the roofs of their houses pulled off. If 
they were stubborn, they received the ''beech seal"; 
and one of them near Bennington was sentenced to be 
suspended in a chair on the . sign-post of the Catamount 
tavern. These punishments were usually awarded 
upon a trial before committees or officers of the Green 
Mountain Boys ; and, in a sort of whimsical bravado, 
when they had inflicted iheir punishment, they usually 
gave their victims a certificate to that effect, knowing 
very well that these certificates would be carried to the 
New York officers. 

These proceedings were of course illegal and 
irregular. In short, they were revolutionary. The 
number of these punishments was not large. Although 
"the beech seal" has become famous in history and in 
fiction, there do not appear to have been more than 
five or six instances of its application ; and there were 
not quite as many instances of interference with the 
houses of the New York settlers. Of course in a 
peaceable community, each one of these instances of 
forcible interference was an outrage against the law 



104 Vermoxt Settlers and 

But there cannot be found another example of a suc- 
cessful revolution and resistance to tyranny, in which 
there were so few instances of the invasion of ordinary 
rights. No blood was shed, no property was taken 
away from its owners, although some was destroyed, 
and the utmost that was required was, that the people 
in the community should recognize and respect the 
rights of the settlers under the New Hampshire titles. 

Encouraged by the successful resistance of the 
Green Mountain Boys to the intrusions of the New 
York speculators, settlements increased with great 
rapidity until the breaking out of the Revolutionary 
War. In 1771 a census was taken of the inhabitants 
of that part of Vermont on the east side of the 
mountains, in which it was shown that there were 
about forty- six hundred people in that part of the state. 
At the same time on the west side of the mountains 
there could not have been more than about twenty-five 
hundred people, making for the whole state about 
seven thousand people. At the time of the breaking out 
of the war these settlements had so increased that it is 
estimated there were then about twenty thousand people 
in the New Hampshire grants. 

These new settlers were largely, if not exclusively, 
from New England. Salisbury, Connecticut, furnished 
its full share. It sent Heber Allen to Poultney, 
Samuel Chipman to Tinmouth, John Chipmaa to Mid- 
dlebury, Thomas Chittenden to Williston, Ira Allen to 
Colchester, besides numerous well known men to other 
towns. The little town of Tinmouth, which now has 
hardly one thousand inhabitants, had among its settlers 
at the outbreak of the war thr6e men, each of whom 
had one or more sons who were destined to be of great 



New York Land Speculators. 105 

service to the public and to acquire great honors in the 
new state. These men were Samuel Chipraan, Samuel 
Mattocks and Stephen Royce. 

Not only had the number of settlers increased, but 
their improvements kept pace with the growth of their 
numbers. The settlers of Clarendon built a road 
through to Manchester, giving, down through the val- 
ley of the Battenkill, communication with x4.lbany. It 
is to be noticed that while the settlers revolted from 
the government of New York, they did not cease 
business relations with the New York people. They 
got such supplies as they had largely from Albany, and 
it was the boast of the leaders of this revolution that 
they never interfered with the collection of honest 
debts due from the settlers. 

The Onion River Company commenced improve- 
ments in Colchester at what is now Winooski Falls. 
Here Remember Baker was employed at his old trade, 
building mills. He had already built mills at Arling- 
ton and Pawlet, and he finally moved his family to 
Colchester. Baker was not only a good mill-wright 
and an industrious citizen, but he had been a soldier in 
active service in the French war and was one of the 
most resolute and active of the partisan leaders in the 
fight against the New York authority. Ira Allen, 
although the youngest member of the Onion River 
Company, haying begun operations before he was 
twenty-one years of age, became from the start its 
leading spirit. He was a man of vigorous intellect, , 
broad and comprehensive views, good business judg- 
ment, and great if not excessive boldness and energy of 
action. Under his management the Onion River Com- 
pany commenced the construction of mills at Winooski, 



106 Vermont Settlers and 

soon got possession and control of the mills on the 
Otter creek, where the city of Vergennes is, and com- 
menced and diligently prosecuted enterprises for the 
development of the large real estate that had come into 
its control. The proprietors' records of Colchester 
show that the Onion River Company built a road from 
Colchester to Castleton. Of course it could not have 
been a very perfect road, and undoubtedly in many 
instances it followed roads built by the settlers along 
its line. By these roads there was communication, by 
horseback in the summer and sleighing in winter, from 
Colchester, by way of Castleton, to Skeensboro, now 
Whitehall, and, by way of Clarendon and Manchester, 
to Albany. Other settlers had opened up some of the 
towns along the lake shore opposite Crown Point and 
Ticonderoga and had begun the usual improvements of 
prosperous settlements. 

Governor Tryon was entirely helpless against the 
opposition of the Vermont settlers. He applied to the 
home government for forces, but received not only a 
refusal to grant his application but censure for his 
course which had made it necessary. The sympathies 
of most of the people of New York were with the 
Vermont settlers. When complaints were made of 
resistance he could only reply by the issue of furious 
proclamations, denouncing the settlers as the " Ben- 
nington mob " and threatening terrible things against 
them. 

During the winter of 1772, John Munro, claiming 
authority under a New York commission, succeeded in 
getting together a force to arrest Remember Baker, 
who was then living with his family at Arlington. 
This force surprised Baker in his house in the early 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 107 

morning, wounded him and his wife, and started with 
them for Albany. Ira Allen stated the number of this 
force to be fifty. That was undoubtedly an exaggera- 
tion of the actual number. Word of this arrest was 
carried to Bennington and ten men started to the 
rescue. They succeeded in reaching the Hudson river, 
at a point where the city of Troy now is, before 
Munro got there with his prisoners, and so turning 
towards Arlington they intercepted Munro, who claimed 
that his men deserted him and ran away. The ten men 
rescued Baker and his wife from their captors, whatever 
their number was. The truth of the matter was, that the 
people of Albany county were in sympathy with the 
settlers and could not be depended on to carry out any 
violent measures. Further evidence of this may be 
noted from the fact that Seth Warner, although one of 
the most active of the partisan leaders and one for 
whom large rewards were offered by the New York 
governor, lived quietly at his home in Bennington 
within a mile of the New York line without any effort 
being made to arrest him. Warner was a cousin of 
Baker, although he had no connection with the land 
company and does not appear to have been in any 
sense a land speculator. 

In May, 1772, Governor Try on addressed a letter 
to the Rev. Mr. Dewey of Bennington, asking that a 
delegation be sent to New York to confer with regard 
to a settlement of the difficulties. A delegation was 
accordingly sent. They were received very graciously 
by the governor and it was proposed that all prosecu- 
tions for the offenses of the settlers in resisting the 
officers should be suspended until the king's pleasure 
should be known, and that the governor should recom- 



108 Vermont Settlers and 

mend to the claimants of the contested lands to put a 
stop to all civil suits concerning them. The committee 
were pleased with this proposition, and their report 
was received at Bennington with great rejoicing ; but 
to their dismay they learned that, at the very time 
these negotiations were proceeding in New York, sur- 
veyors in the employ of the New York purchasers were 
actively at work, and that Colonel Reid had driven off, 
without legal process, the owners of the mills on the 
Otter creek, and was himself dispossessed by the 
settlers. Each party accused the other of want of 
good faith and the pacification was an entire failure. 
Governor Tryon issued some more proclamations offer- 
ing rewards for the capture of leaders and again 
applied to the British government for military force. 
To this application Lord Dartmouth, on December 9, 
1772, made reply, stating his expectation that the 
questions which had occasioned the disturbances would 
shortly be determined in a manner more effectual to 
restore quiet than the interposition of force, which, 
he said, 

"Ought never to be called into the aid of the civil 
authority but in cases of absolute and unavoidable 
necessity, and which would be highly improper if ap- 
plied to support possessions which after the order 
issued in 17G7 upon a petition of the proprietors of the 
New Hampsbire townships, may be of very doubtful 
title." 

During the course of these hostiUties elaborate 
papers were prepared and submitted to the New York 
Assembly, attempting to justify the course of the New 
York claimants and to magnify what they termed the 
outrages of the settlers or the "Bennington mob." 
These papers were usually credited to Mr. Duane. 



New York Land Speculators. 109 

Beside other claims was one that, on the evening after 
the close of the trial at Albany, an interview was had 
between the attorney general and others representing 
the claimants on the one side, and Ethan Allen and 
some of his friends on the other in which it was 
alleged that Allen agreed to advise his friends to accept 
the situation and make the best terms they could with 
the claimants ; and it was claimed to be a great breach 
of faith on Allen's part that he afterwards refused to 
abide by that agreement. It was further claimed that 
the resistance of the settlers was due to the influence of 
the Rev. Mr. Dewey of Bennington. It is true that 
Mr. Dewey was bold and steadfast in his opposition to 
the oppression of the claimants, and the people of 
Vermont are more largely indebted to him than most 
of them are aware for his bold and steadfast course in 
the troubles out of which grew the new state. The 
statement that Allen agreed to yield was denied by 
him and is entirely inconsistent with his well known 
traits of character. So far as it is a question of 
veracity between Allen and Duane we are bound to 
give credit to Allen, because in the whole course of 
their proceedings Allen's character for honesty comes 
out better than Mr. Duane's. Allen was a boastful 
man, indiscreet in his speech, sometimes profane and 
not always strictly accurate, but there is nothing in all 
his written statements, and he made a great many 
of them, to show that he was intentionally untruthful. 
On the other hand Mr. Duane's character for honesty 
is impeached by an examination of his writings. He is 
sometimes found guilty of absolute falsehood, and 
frequently guilty of attempts to deceive by concealing 
material facts. In the manifesto in question he makes 



110 Vermont Settlers and 

clamorous complaint against the settlers that they had 
resorted to violence when they had a perfect remedy by 
appeal if they had any title to their lands. Mr, Duane 
was counsel for all the plaintiffs in those ejectment 
suits and a party in interest in some of them. He 
knew very well that all the declarations in those suits 
were intentionally framed so as not to allow any 
appeal. This statement alone would be sufficient to 
impeach his veracity. Allen denied ever agreeing to 
yield or advise the settlers to submit to the decision of 
the court. It is true that there was an interview 
between the parties named at a public house in Albany 
on the evening of the trial. Ira Allen in his history 
states that at that interview great promises were made 
to his brother to induce him to give the advice they 
sought. It must be said, however, that from an 
interview of the nature of the admitted character of 
this one, at a public house in the evening after the 
circulation of bibulous refreshments such as would 
be naturally expected on such an occasion, it would be 
hardly just to claim that any great question of veracity 
could arise. It must be confessed that Allen's own 
statement of his reply that "The gods of the valleys 
were not the gods of the hills ' ' also seems very much 
to have the appearance of being more maudlin than 
heroic. 

The New York claimants did not abandon their 
efforts. Colonel Reid, in the following June, again 
took forcible possession of the mills on the Otter Creek 
and established a force of Scottish emigrants to take 
possession for him. In the following August, Allen, 
Warner and Baker appeared with over one hundred 
men, and warned the Scotchmen to depart, which they 



New Yokk Land Speculators. Ill 

did ; and Reid's mill was thoroughly destroyed. Of 
course affidavits of these proceedings were sent to New 
York and in them it was related that the Greep 
Mountain Boys conducted in a boisterous manner 
and that Baker held up his hand, from which his 
thumb had been cut off in his encounter with Justice 
Munro, and stated that was his commission. The 
same party found Captain Wooster serving ejectment 
writs in Addison. They took him and his sheriff and 
threatened to apply the beech seal ; but, after some 
parley, Wooster gave in, sent off his sheriff, and their 
treaty of peace was settled over a mug of flip. 
Wooster afterwards became a major general in the 
Revolutionary army, and was killed during Tryon's 
invasion of Connecticut. To this renewed outbreak 
Tryon could only reply with more proclamations. 
Indeed, his condition was not satisfactory to himself. 
He was defied in Vermont, ignored in New York, and 
rebuked and repudiated in England, and, what was of 
more consequence to him, the stream of fees for new 
grants had ceased to flow. 

In the winter of 1774 the New York provincial 
legislature passed a law, by which it was gravely 
enacted that, unless Allen, Warner, Baker, Cochran 
and others named in the act, after notice published in 
the New York papers, should surrender themselves for 
commitment within seventy days, the person neglecting 
to surrender himself was "to be adjudged, deemed and 
(if indicted for a capital offence hereafter to be perpe- 
trated) to be convicted and attainted of felony, as in 
cases of persons convicted and attainted of felony 
without benefit of clergy"; and the colonial courts 
were authorized and directed to award execution 



112 Vermont Settlers and 

against such offender so indicted for capital offence in 
the same manner as if he had been convicted or at- 
tainted in said courts. It was afterwards claimed by 
Mr. Duane that this enactment was copied from some 
old English statutes. There was, however, no statute 
which furnished a full precedent. If this enactment 
had not been so ridiculously impotent, it would have 
been an outrage on all principles of civilized juris- 
prudence. As it was, it was simply ridiculous. The 
proscribed parties remaining all the time within the 
territory claimed to be, and which undoubtedly was, 
within the civil jurisdiction of the province of New 
York, defied the law, and, over their own signatures, 
issued counter proclamations against the New York 
authorities and speculators, and defied those authorities 
to come and execute the mandates of that law. 

It is related in the "Life of Ethan Allen," by the 
late Henry Hall, that, after the publication of that 
proclamation, in which a reward of one hundred 
pounds was offered for Allen's capture, he boldly rode 
into the city of Albany in open daylight, went into a 
public house and called for his drinks, announced his 
name and the fact of the reward offered for his arrest, 
and then mounted his horse and rode away. This 
story seems improbable, but it is by no means im- 
possible to be true. The Vermonters had undoubtedly 
more friends in Albany than the New York land 
speculators. In the very next year, after the capture 
of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, Allen was acting in 
concert with the New York troops in the invasion of 
Canada. 

It may be noted that one of the principal sup- 
porters of this extraordinary enactment was Crean 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 113 

Brush, then holding a seat in the New York assembly 
from the county of Cumberland on the east side of the 
mountains in Vermont. The other member of that 
assembly from Vermont was Colonel Samuel Wells of 
Brattleboro. As a curious illustration of the fact that 
people little apprehend what is in store for them, it 
may be noted that within less than ten years after the 
enactment of this law the same Ethan Allen married 
the step-daughter of Brush, a favorite member of 
Brush's family, and, further, that within less than nine 
years from that time Colonel Wells, when fleeing for 
his life, took refuge in the house of the same Ethan 
Allen. 

In November, 1772, Governor Tryon communi- 
cated to his council information that the settlers had 
held a convention at Manchester and had appointed 
Jehiel Hawley of Arlington and James Breakenridge of 
Bennington their agents to go to England and to apply 
to the king for relief against the oppression of the 
New York speculators. When these agents arrived in 
London they found their mission had already been 
anticipated by the report of the board of trade which 
has already been mentioned. As the recommendations 
of that board were satisfactory to them there was 
nothing left for them to do but to go home and wait 
the action of the privy council on that report. When 
Governor Tryon's reply to that report was received it 
became evident that a settlement of the vexed question 
was more difficult than had been imagined. There 
were other irregularities of the New York government 
in respect to the issue of patents on lands purchased 
from the Indians. On account of all these complaints 
Lord Dartmouth directed Governor Tryon to come 



114 Vermont Settleks and 

to Eogland and explain these matters. This direction 
was given on the 4th of August, 1773. As might 
naturally be expected Governor Try on was not espec- 
ially anxious to meet this investigation and so delayed 
complying with this direction of Lord Dartmouth until 
the April following. When he arrived at London 
there were further delays in the matter of the adjust- 
ment of these New Hampshire grants and it was not 
until the second of March, 1775, that any attempt at 
an adjustment of these disputes could be made. At 
that time upon the suggestion of Governor Tryon it 
was agreed that the case should be stated in New York 
and carried by a regular appeal to the king and council 
where there could be an authoritative decision of the 
whole matter. This of itself would involve a delay of 
several years. But that delay was not enough to 
satisfy the New York speculators. The next week an 
application was made by Colonel Reid to the board of 
trade for a further delay on the ground that he had 
further evidence to submit to the board and he wished 
to have the matter reopened to be heard when Gov- 
ernor Tryon should return from Bath where he was 
going on account of his health. It would seem that 
the application for re-hearing before the privy council 
on the ground of newly discovered evidence, after an 
interval of eight years from the first application of the 
settlers, was not a very strong reason for delay. At 
all events this delay was not upon the application of 
the settlers nor was it in their interest. 

The breaking out of the Revolutionary War pre- 
vented any further hearing and Governor Tryon was 
sent back to New York. Previous to his departure for 
New York Lord Dartmouth wrote to him on May 4th, 



New York Land Specui.ators. 115 

1T75, that he would soon be able to send to him the 
king's final orders in respect to the matter and further 
instructed him as follows : 

"In the meantime it will be your duty to take no 
further steps whatever regarding those cases and to 
avoid, in conformity with the instructions you have 
already received, making any grants or allowing any 
surveys of locations of lands in those parts of the coun- 
try which are the seat of the present disputes." 

Governor Tryon reached New York June 25th, 
on the same day that Washington passed through the 
city on his way to take command of the American 
army. In the continental congress a motion was made 
for his seizure, but this was opposed by Mr. Duane 
and was unsuccessful. A later attempt was made to 
secure him, but it is said that Mr. Duane 's footman 
was sent to Governor Tryon in season to give him 
information of what was resolved and that he escaped 
to a man-of-war. In utter disregard of the parting 
instructions of Lord Dartmouth, he issued a patent on 
October 28, 1775, for forty thousand acres of land, 
and another in June following, for twenty-three 
thousand acres, — both of these patents after he had 
taken refuge on board the king's man-of-war. 

During Governor Tryon's absence Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor Colden again became the acting governor of New 
York. His official term continued from April 4, 1774, 
until June 25, 1775. During that time he issued 
patents for about four hundred thousand acres of 
Vermont lands; and in some of those issues he entirely 
disregarded his own construction of the king's order, 
and sold again lands that he knew had been included in 



116 Vermont Settleks and 

the grants of Governor Wentworth. It does not seem 
probable that he could have received the full fees for 
these patents, which would have been over thirty-six 
thousand dollars for all the officers. It seems more 
probable that he took advantage of the situation and 
issued those patents freely for just what he could get. 

During Governor Colden's last administration, the 
Revolutionary War broke out. On the 10 th of May, 
1775, Ethan Allen with his Green Mountain Boys 
made a daring attack on Fort Ticonderoga and took it 
by surprise with all its armament and munitions of 
war. *On the same day Warner captured Crown Point 
with its garrison and armament. These occurrences 
coming after the battle of Lexington tilled the friends 
of the king with astonishment and grief. Governor 
Golden, then administering the government, a doughty 
old man of eighty-seven, wrote an account of this 
misfortune to the british ministry ; and in his final 
statement he unintentionally gave to the settlers of 
Bennington a compliment, which it will always be their 
pride to remember. He says "the only people of this 
province who had any hand in this expedition were 
that lawless people of whom your lordship has heard 
much under the name of the Bennington mob." This 
was the old man's last appearance in connection with 
the Vermont lands. 

It is not the purpose of this paper to follow the 
story through the Revolutionary M'^ar. It is enough 
to say, that Ethan Allen was taken prisoner and 
Remember Baker was killed very early in the invasion 
of Canada. Seth Warner became the principal officer 
of the Green Mountain Boys in the Revolutionary War 



New York Land Speculators. 117 1 

i 

and Robert Cochran became a field officer of one of -; 

the New York regiments in the continental line. 1 

The death of Baker was a great loss to the Vermont \ 

settlers. He was an industrious, good citizen and a j 

brave and capable soldier. | 



Vermont Settlers and 



CHAPTER IX. 

SETTLEMENTS ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 

While the settlers of western Vermont were hav- 
ing these troubles, those on the east side of the moun- 
tains were having a different experience. Although 
these settlements were but a few miles distant from 
each other, the mountains intervened, and there was 
little or no actual communication. In all the town 
histories, now so thoroughly collected in the series of 
papers commenced by Miss Hemenway, there is no 
notice of any communication between the settlers 
across the mountains until just before the commence- 
ment of the Revolutionary War, when Captain Cochran 
with his company of Green Mountain Boys went to 
Westminster the second day after the massacre of 
March 13, 1T75. When Captain Robinson, in Novem- 
ber and December, 1766, was making preparations for 
the appeal of the settlers to the king, he took petitions 
and powers of attorney from nearly a thousand differ- 
ent persons interested in the Vermont settlements. 
Those names included nearly every settler on the west 
side of the mountains and nearly all the grantees found 
in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts, including 
"friend Benjamin Ferris" and the Burlings and 
Willises. In that list is found no name of any settler 
on the east side of the mountains, nor of any of the 



New York Land Speculators. 11& 

grantees who resided in New Hampshire, nor of those 
who held titles to the Connecticut river towns in 
Windham and Windsor counties. 

At that time the only road across the mountains 
was the military road from Charlestown to Crown 
Point, passing through what is now the village of 
Rutland. That road was made in 1759 and 1760, and 
was traversable with wagons from the Connecticut 
river to the foot of the mountains and with pack 
horses across the mountains to Rutland, but there was 
then no road from Rutland to Albany. The shortest 
road across the mountains from Bennington to Draper, 
now Wilmington, was not made until after 1778, when 
its construction was ordered by the state government. 
The provincial legislature of New York had ordered a 
part of this road in 1771 ; but their route after 
crossing the mountains from the east bore to the south 
through Searsburgh and Pownal, for Bennington was 
not a pleasant place for Nevv Yorkers to traverse in 
those days. There was but little done under this 
order, however, for it took about all the taxes raised 
in Cumberland county to pay the fees and salaries of 
the swarm of officials created by the New York govern- 
ment. In 1771, when Judge Thomas Chandler was 
making defense against the removal of the shire of 
Cumberland county from his town of Chester, he 
stated that, during the preceding year, a route had 
been traced from Chester which showed the best pass 
within one hundred miles on either side. He stated 
that this route could easily be made passable for 
carriages, and that there was no other road from 
Cumberland county to Albany within one hundred 
miles of that pass, except one in Massachusetts over 



130 Vermont Settlers and 

the Hoosic mountain which he claimed was not a con- 
venient route for travel. It does not appear just when 
this road from Chester to Manchester was made ; but 
it was for many years the most convenient road across 
the mountains, and, until the days of raih'oads, was 
claimed to be the easiest pass across the mountains 
south of the valley of the Winooski passing through 
Montpelier. This was probably the road traversed by 
Captain Cochran with his company, when he went to 
Westminster on the occasion of what was termed the 
Westminster massacre. It was also, as late as Jan- 
uary, 1783, the usually traveled road from Brattleboro 
to Albany, because it was on that road that Col. Wells 
met the company sent to arrest him. In 1769, when 
the Deans were arrested in Windsor for cutting pine 
trees contrary to the requirements of the English 
charters, the officer having them in charge did not dare 
to take them through Massachusetts and so took them 
from Brattleboro across the mountains through the 
woods, but as there was no road he was obliged to 
procure a guide. 

While the actual distance was much less, there was 
no road for travel from Albany to those settlements 
nearer than the one through southern Massachusetts, 
making the distance about one hundred and fifty miles. 
This distance was not only great of itself, but it travers- 
ed a portion of Massachusetts that was settled by a 
class of people which would naturally be expected to be 
hostile to anybody interfering with the settlers on the 
Connecticut river above the Massachusetts line. Those 
settlements were largely extensions of Massachusetts set- 
tlements from Springfield up the river. The land speculat- 
ors who had bought the Bennington lands with such avid- 



New York Land Speculatous. 121 

ity could not have anticipated getting possession of the 
Windham county lands without a struggle with the set- 
tlers in possession. In that struggle they would be at 
a disadvantage, not only from the great distance they 
would be obliged to travel but also from the hostility 
they had reason to expect from the settlers of that 
part of Massachusetts which they would be obliged to 
traverse. Ft)r these or some other reasons there were no 
purchasers of the improved lands in the New Hamp- 
shire grants on the east side of the Green Mountains. 
As the speculators would not buy, the government of- 
ficials could not get their fees for patents, unless they 
could by some means induce the settlers to apply for 
confirmatory charters. The paramount idea of all the 
colonial governors of New York was to secure the larg- 
est possible amount of fees for land grants. So long as 
they could get these fees, they were willing to endure 
insult and defiance in the province and rebuke and cen- 
sure from the home government. To secure these fees 
from the settlers on the east side required a very differ- 
ent policy from that adopted with the settlers on the 
other side of the mountains, and so the history of the 
two sections of Vermont during those few years shows 
a most remarkable contrast, not only in the policy of the 
government but in the experience of the settlers as well. 
While in case of the settlers of Bennington, who were 
located within a day's journey of the city of Albany and 
were isolated from other settlements that sympathized 
with them by long stretches of mountains without roads, 
the New York speculators, like Duane, Kempe, Ban- 
yer and their associates, were perfectly willing to pay 
the required fees for patents covering the farms of these 
settlers, they were not willing to pay those large fees 



122 Vekmont Settlers and 

for equally good or better farms in Brattleboro and 
Putney, distant more than a week's journey from Al- 
bany and within easy communication with the settle- 
ments of Massachusetts and New Hampshire adjacent, 
who would be expected to make common cause with 
their relatives and friends on* the Vermont side of the 
river. To attempt to molest these settlers would be 
worse than going through a hornet's nest after honey. 
The township of Chester had been originally grant- 
ed by Governor Wentworth under the name of Flam- 
stead and it was regranted in 1761 under the name of 
New Flamstead. The settlement of this township was 
commenced in the year 1763 by Thomas Chandler, his 
two sons and several others from Massachusetts. Chand- 
ler was a man of great energy, one of those men peculiar- 
ly adapted to pushing settlements, and he very soon be- 
gan to devise means of making his settlement prosper- 
ous. So after the publication in April, 1765, of Gov- 
ernor Colden's order announcing the order of the king 
making the territory west of the Connecticut river part 
of the province of New York, Chandler and his associ- 
ates made a zealous attempt for the establishment of a 
new county, of which his settlement of Chester should 
be the county seat. For this purpose he and one of his 
fellow settlers went to New York to urge that claim. 
There was good reason for the establishment of the new 
county, but, although their claim seemed very plausi- 
ble, they could make but little headway upon their first 
application. A report was made to the New York 
council, by a committee of which the historian Smith 
was chairman, giving specious reasons why the new coun- 
ty ought not to be established. Mr. Chandler and his 
associates, however, were induced to make application 



New York Land Speculators. 123 

for a New York grant of their township, and from that 
time on it is wonderful to note the great favor with 
which all other applications were met. Their new 
charter was the first one granted by the New York 
governor after the repeal of the stamp act. It was dated 
July 14, 1766. Although in the meantime nothing had 
occurred to avoid the objections of the committee, a law 
was speedily passed by the colonial legislature creating 
the new county of Cumberland, making Chester its 
county seat. Two days after the new charter of the 
town, commissions were issued making Thomas Chand- 
ler chief judge of the court of common pleas, surrogate 
and justice of the peace ; John Chandler, clerk of the 
courts; Thomas Chandler, Jr., justice of the peace and 
quorum ; Nathan Stone, of Chester, high sheriff of the 
county, and Timothy Olcott, coroner. It was certainly 
a generous crop of officials for a new town. Iq addi- 
tion to this, Chandler had, early in the same year, been 
made colonel of a militia regiment organized in the 
southern part of that county. For some time, as may 
be expected, these new officials were zealous advocates 
of the New York jurisdiction. It must be confessed, 
however, that after the removal of the county shire 
from Chester to Westminster and the appointment of 
Crean Brush as clerk of the court in place of John 
Chandler, in 1772, the zeal of the Chandlers very seri- 
ously abated and Thomas Chandler, Jr., became an 
early adherent to the new state of Vermont, in which he 
was advanced to many high offices. 

The next township to be rechartered was Brattle- 
boro. It will be remembered that this was one of the 
three towns formed out of the forty-eight thousand 
acres of "equivalent lands" sold by the state of Con- 



124 Vermont Settlers and 

necticut. Of this town Colonel Samuel Wells was an 
early settler. He had taken up a farm of six hundred 
acres just east of where the present village of Brattle- 
boro is, on part of which some of the grounds of the 
present Vermont insane asylum are situated. He was 
said to be wealthy and was a prominent and active 
man in the new settlement. In the next year, as ap- 
pears from the letter of the agent of the heirs of Gov- 
ernor Dummer already referred to, he was found to be 
an agent of the New York government to procure the 
settlers of Dummerston to apply for a confirmatory 
charter. Colonel Wells was throughout the whole con- 
tent an active supporter of the New York claimants, 
was appointed one of the judges of the New York courts 
and was by the New York party made one of the repre- 
sentatives to the colonial assembly. He was one of the 
men who, in 1771, made an affidavit that there were 
not over one hundred families in all the grants between 
the mountains and the Connecticut river in 1765. He 
was one of the men in that county on whom the New 
York authorities chiefly relied. When he died shortly 
after the Revolutionary War, although he had been re- 
puted wealthy and had lived in considerable style for a 
frontier settler, it was found that he was bankrupt and 
his estate was owing some $15,000 more than the value 
of all his property, which was a large sum for those 
times, and that his creditors were mainly the same 
New York speculators with whom the settlers on the 
other side of the mountains had their troubles. There 
is satisfaction in thinking that Col. Wells made these 
speculators pay well for his assistance in those contests 
with the settlers under the New Hampshire titles. 
Whether his influence had anything to do with the 



JSew York Land Speculators. 125 

application for the contirraatory charter of Brattleboro 
is purely a matter of conjecture. 

The title to the lands of Brattleboro was one 
which must have been held good in any honest court. 
The most of that township was within the undoubted 
limits of the charter of Massachusetts, for the line of 
Massachusetts running west from the point three miles 
north" of the most northerly bend of the Merrimac 
river, described in that charter, even as claimed by 
New Hampshire, would cross the Connecticut river 
near or above the north line of Brattleboro. That 
charter was a proprietary charter and by it there was 
given to the province of Massachusetts just as good a 
right to sell lands in Brattleboro as in Springfield or 
Northhampton. Massachusetts had sold these lands to 
Connecticut ; Connecticut had sold them to the syndi- 
cate of which Colonel Brattle and Governor Dammer 
were members ; and Governor Wentworth had given a 
confirmatory charter to the settlers under the old title. 
Such considerations as these had, however, no weight 
with the New York governors against their greed for 
fees. On the other hand, this was the township in 
which Fort Dummer had been built, and some parts of 
the town had been settled more than forty years. The 
improvements made during such long settlements were 
worth much more than the amount of fees exacted and 
the timid proprietors could not afford to take any risk 
in delaying to apply for a confirmatory charter. 

The next township to be rechartered was Hert- 
ford, now Hartland. That was a tract of land of 
better than ordinary quality. It lay on the Connecticut 
river, a stream navigable for all purposes of the early 
settlers, and this gave settlers there great advantage 



126 Vermoxt Settlers and 

over those of the interior townships. It had settle- 
ments with considerable improvements and its great 
meadows were too valuable to permit any risk of losing 
their title. The same considerations applied to Putney, 
the next in the order of application for new charters. 
Confirmatory charters were granted to Townshend and 
Tomlinson, now Grafton, the next year. These, to- 
gether with a tract of five thousand acres in what is 
now the town of Athens, were all the charters issued 
during the lifetime of Governor Moore. 

The act creating the new county of Cumberland 
was returned by the king with his disapproval. Mr. 
Davis, in his History of Cumberland County, seems to 
consider it strange that this act should be disapproved. 
While the creation of a new county for the accommo- 
.dation of the settlers was not only a reasonable but a 
very necessary act, the details of that law gave 
abundant reason for its disapproval. Among its pro- 
visions was one to the effect that all lands held under 
charters from the government of New Hampshire 
should continue to rem lia within the c )aQty of 
Albany. This extraordinary provision would make the 
new county cut up like squares on a checkerboard and 
leave most of its settlers still within the county of 
Albany, — a provision which would entirely defeat the 
beneficent purpose of the establishment of the new 
county. The object of this extraordinary provision 
was too apparent. It was for the purpose of providing 
that all trials of the title to lands in dispute should be 
had at Albany. The framers of that bill were un- 
willing to allow those cases to be heard before the 
jurors of the county. There was another objection to 
the provisions of that bill, which seems to have been 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 127 

the one named in the disapproval. That disapproval 
very seriously deranged the operations of the New 
York governor in the new state. Not discouraged, 
however, the colonial governor and his council by an 
ordinance, as it was termed, re-established the county 
of Cumberland early in 1768, and upon that re-estab- 
lishment the officers under the first organization were 
re-appointed, except the sheriff, Stone, who appears to 
have moved from Chester to Windsor. The settlers, 
however, did not accept this ordinance with entire 
respect. Knowing that the first law creating the new 
county had been disapprov^ed by the king, they saw no 
reason why the second ordinance should not meet the 
same fate. Indeed, the establishment of a new county 
by the ordinance of the governor and council was, to 
say the least, an act of very questionable validity. 

There were several causes of dissatisfaction among 
the settlers.' All the principal officers of- the county 
were appointed by the governor and council. This 
was inconsistent with the yankee idea of electing their 
own officers in town meeting. Although no settler was 
evicted on account of the New York title there was a 
steady pressure to persuade them to pay large fees for 
the confirmatory titles. This was exceedingly dis- 
tasteful. The great number of offices created for the 
county, including seven or eight judges of the courts, 
the surrogate and coroner, numerous justices of the 
peace and the quorum, all of whom managed to get 
something out of the county, either in fees or salaries, 
made the county administration an expensive luxury. 
Large jury service was required at the terms of court, 
which was burdensome. The fees allowed against 
debtors in actions in the courts were large and oppres- 



128 Vermoxt Settlers and 

sive. In all these respects the condition of the settlers 
on the west side of the river compared very unfavorably 
with that of their neighbors in New Hampshire. The 
whole population of the county was only about 4,000 
and the number- of officers supported by that county 
would be burdensome to a county ten times its size. 
There was undoubtedly, in addition to all this, a turbu- 
lent element, to whom even an honest administration of 
justice was very offensive. 

When the officers of the new county undertook to 
perform their duties, they were openly resisted and 
defied. The leaders of this resistance resided in 
Windsor. At their head was Colonel Nathan Stone. 
When the sheriff' undertook to make an arrest, they 
resisted him and rescued the prisoner. For this they 
were naturally prosecuted. The names of the parties 
who were so prosecuted included a number of men who 
afterwards became leading citizens of the new state, 
and they are familiar names in the later history of the 
northern part of the state. General Benjamin Wait, 
the founder of the town of Waitsfield, was one of them. 
When the time for holding the term of court came on, 
these Windsor men appeared, with Col. Stone at their 
head, and Stone, with a drawn sword, objected to the 
proceedings, forced the court to dismiss the actions 
against the men prosecuted for riot and resistance, and, 
in fact, broke up the term of the court. They made 
prisoner of a man named Grout, who had settled at 
Chester, and who, although not regularly admitted to 
the bar was trying to get a living out of his practice, 
or rather his practices, as a lawyer. He was very 
offensive to these Windsor people who took him 
prisoner, carried him to Windsor, and detained him 



New York Land Speculatous. 139 

for several days, trying to force him to give up his 
Jaw business. After a. while he escaped, went to 
New York with his complaints and commenced civil 
and criminal prosecutions against Stone and his as- 
sociates. These prosecutions must have given the 
New York government considerable uneasiness. It 
was not strong enough in that county to subdue the 
offenders. The colonial officers dared not attempt to 
take their prisoners over the mountains, nor through 
Massachusetts to Albany, and their own disregard of 
the express orders of the home government prevented 
their seeking assistance from that source. Whatever 
may have been the reasons for that action, the prosecu- 
tions against Stone and his associates seemed to have 
been mysteriously dropped, and Stone, instead of being 
a rebellious opponent of the New York authority, 
turned up as an applicant for a recharter of the town 
of Windsor. He was appointed to several offices in 
the county, and finally, after the establishment of the 
state government, his adherence to the New York 
authority was so strong as to cause him to make some 
indiscreet remarks against the authorities of the new 
state, for which he was promptly arrested and fined. 
He was admitted by the colonial goi^ernment of New 
York into the inner circle and made one of the 
grantees of some Vermont lands in the northern part of 
the state. 

During the next year application was made by the 
proprietors of several townships, setting forth the 
hardships of the new settlement and the uncertainty 
hanging over the titles to their lands by which they 
were made unsalable, and requesting that they might 
be allowed confirmatory charters for one-half the usual 



130 Vermont Settlers and 

fees. This application was rejected. From that time 
it would seem to have been the policy of Governor 
Tryon to insist in each case on as large fees as the 
applicants could be induced to give. 

In 17T1 the settlers of the towns along the Con- 
necticut river made application for the removal of the 
shire to some town on the river, and Westminster was 
in 1772 designated for the new shire of the county. 
Among the applicants for this change Colonel Wells of 
Brattleboro and Colonel Stone of Windsor were promi- 
nent. At about the same time Crean Brush, who had 
been connected with the New York government in the 
office of the clerk of the council and who had large 
investments in the grants made by Governor Colden of 
the Bennington county lands, came to Westminster and 
located there as an attorney. He is said to have been 
the first resident attorney in the state of Vermont, 
although his settlement in the county was subsequent 
to that of Groat and other names appear on the records 
as appointed attorneys. When Brush came to the 
county he was at once appointed clerk of the courts. 
The record shows that he was appointed clerk in 
the place of John Chandler "removed for misconduct." 
What that misconduct was, unless it was holding an 
office that some favorite of the governor wanted, is not 
shown by the record. Brush took a leading part in 
the affairs of the new county, and when, in 1773, 
there was an election of members of the colonial 
assembly, he and Colonel Wells were returned as mem- 
bers from Cumberland county. Not much is known 
about that election. Mr. B. H. Hall in his history 
shows a bill that was presented against Wells for 
"nesesares" furnished during that election at Halifax. 



New York Land Speculators. 131 

From this it would seem that the election had pro- 
ceeded according to the modern system. 

During that time the number of terms of the court 
was doubled, so as to make four terms a year. This 
aggravated the burdens of the settlers. There was a 
continuous and growing discontent. The people of 
that county held several meetings, in which were dis- 
cussed, not only the grievances occasioned by the 
English government which resulted in the Revolution, 
but also their own special grievances. They sent to 
the colonial legislature numerous applications for relief, 
which were either ignored or denied ; and they also 
sent, in common with a great number of others in the 
province, a written request to the colonial legislature 
to join the other colonies in concerted measures for 
their protection against the encroachments of the home 
government. That legislature, however, was entirely 
controlled by the tory element. 

Early in March, 1775, application was made to 
Judge Chandler and the other judges to omit the cominor 
term of court set for the 14th of March. Chandler gave 
some encouragement, but his language was ambiguous. 
A large number of the citizens of the county who 
favored measures for relief of the settlers assembled at 
Westminster on Monday. In the evening the sheriff 
gathered together a number of the tory element. 
The whigs took possession of the court house, deter- 
mined that no court session should be had the next day. 
Relying upon the promise of Judge Chandler that no 
armed force should attack them, they had no fire arras 
and no olher weapons than sticks from the wood pile. 
-At midnight the sheriff attacked the court house with a 
posse of men, fired upon those in sight, killed two and 



132 Vermont Settlers and 

wounded several others. This was what is termed the 
"Westminster Massacre." Its effect was, however, 
utterly to destroy the royal authority and, in fact, to 
overturn the authority of the province of New York in 
that county. Upon news of that massacre the citizens 
of the surrounding towns gathered together, like the 
rally of the clans of the scotch highlanders described in 
the Lady of the Lake. Men came from all parts of 
Cumberland county and from across the river in New 
Hampshire, and a swift express was sent across 
the mountains for Captain Robert Cochran with his 
company of Green Mountain Boys. They came as 
swiftly as any available means of travel could bring 
them ; and there was nobody there more eager for the 
fray than were those Green Mountain Boys, Captain 
Cochran took great pleasure in reminding these New ' 
York officers that a large reward was offered for his 
own capture, and invited them to take him and claim 
their reward. 

It required the utmost efforts of the cooler men of 
that crowd, like Colonel Bellows of Walpole, New 
Hampshire ( from whom we have the name of Bellows 
Falls ), to prevent the excited crowd from taking sum- 
mary vengeance upon the judges and officers of the 
court. As it was, they were arrested and taken under 
guard to Northampton, Massachusetts, where they 
were lodged in jail, and Captain Cochran and his com- 
pany had great pleasure in being part of that guard. 
Thet-e ])ris()ners were, as a matter of course, removed 
to New York on habeas corpus proceedings and released 
by the colonial government. The more exciting scenes 
of the American Revolution which soon followed pre. 
vented any further action in this contest. Governor 



New York Land Speculators. 133 

Golden, in making his report to the home government, 
was very careful to state that the causes of this out- 
break were not the same as those upon which the west 
side settlers had acted. He stated that no settlers had 
been evicted on a New York grant nor disturbed in the 
occupation of his land. This was true, but, on the 
other hand, the fact that the settlers of Bennington had 
been so disturbed and that chief justice Livingston, who 
had presided at the trial of those Bennington cases, had 
also come to Westminster and presided at at least one 
term of that court, had rendered the settlers very un- 
easy in the fear that their turn would come. The at- 
tempt of Colonel Howard upon the settlers of Hinsdale 
was not forgotten. While he had brought no suits and 
attempted no force, he had still been there and had 
threatened great things. He was without doubt en- 
couraged by Governor Tryon to make the attempt upon 
the settlers, at the same time that Tryon himself was 
professing to be the friend of the settlers and pretend- 
ing that he only acted in obedience to orders from the 
home government. As Mr. B. H. Hall says, the set- 
tlers believed Tryon was their friend in that transac- 
tion. He had pretended to have offered Howard six 
hundred pounds out of his own pocket to surrender 
that patent. He never paid a penny for that purpo'^e 
and the records now show that while he was professing 
this great friendship for the settlers he was writing to 
the board of trade that the terms Colonel Howard offered 
the settlers were "so generous as to leave no cause 
for complaint." 

All these things and the efforts made to induce the 
settlers to pay the big fees for confirmatory grants 
tended to make them uneasy and more ready to join the 



134 Vermont Settlers and 

other colonies in their resistance. When Governor 
Colclen claimed that the Westminster outbreak was the 
result of the contagious example of the people of Mass- 
achusetts, he stated only part of the real cause. The 
whigs of Cumberland county were actuated by the 
same motives as their Massachusetts neighbors. They 
had as additional reasons the oppressions by the New 
York government of Cumberland county; and those 
who had not taken their confirmatory titles were 
further stimulated by the fear that they would sooner 
or later be called upon to make the same defense to 
their land titles as had been made by their Bennington 
neighbors . 



New York Land Speculators. 



CHAPTER X. 

ORGANIZATION OF STATE GOVERNMENTS. 

The breaking out of the RevoUitionary War so 
occupied the attention of all parties that for some years 
the contest with New York was ignored. In the 
meantime a large portion of the purchasers of the Xew 
York titles had joined the enemy and their land inter- 
ests had been confiscated. A state government was 
organized for New York in the year 1777. During 
the same year an independent government was orga- 
nized for Vermont. At the organization of that gov- 
ernment Thomas Chittenden was made governor and 
Ira Allen was a member of the council. While Ira 
Allen held no great position in name, he was in fact 
the guiding spirit of that government ; and his skill 
and energy, tempered by the practical judgment of 
Governor Chittenden, carried the new state through 
difficulties that would have crushed a less able ad- 
ministration. 

When the New York state government was orga- 
nized George Clinton was made governor. His gov- 
ernment should not be confounded with that of the 
colonial governor Admiral Clinton. The new governor, 
George Clinton, was a member of one of the leading 
colonial families of New York. He was thoroughly 
imbued with the aristocratic sentiments of those times 



136 Vermont Settlers and 

and had some small interests in the Vermont lands 
under some of the grants of Governor Golden. The 
constitution of the state of New York was adopted on 
the 8th of May, 1777. By it the validity of all grants 
made by the colonial government of that province was 
affirmed. This provision annulled all the New Hamp- 
shire titles and that annulment was made part of the 
organic law of the state. At the same time a claim 
was made to all quit rents accruing upon land grants 
that had been made in the name of the king within the 
province. This was of itself a very unjust provision. 
Its effect would be to put most of the burdens of the 
state government upon these lands, for the largest por- 
tion of the land grants of New York had been made 
upon merely nominal quit rents. 

The good conduct and activity of the Green 
Mountain Boys in the military operations of 1777 
attracted the favorable notice of the whole country. 
Even the legislature of New York was induced to con- 
sider the claims of the Vermont settlers. Previous 
to that time they had denounced those claims as unjust 
and iniquitous and as made upon frivolous pretenses. 

In February, 1778, a joint committee of the senate 
and assembly of that state was appointed to take into 
consideration "the unhappy situation of the good sub- 
jects of the state in the eastern district. " This com- 
mittee made a report recommending the adoption of a 
series of resolutions, with a preamble containing a 
recital of the grievances of the settlers. This preamble 
recited that among the causes of disaffection were the 
high quit rents reserved in the land grants of New 
York, the exorbitant fees of office demanded by the 
colonial officials for confirmatory charters, the fact that 



New York Land Speculators. 137 

"the interests of the servants of the crown and of new 
adventurers were in many instances, contrary to justice 
and policy, preferred to the equitable claims for con- 
firmation of those who had obtained the lands under 
New Hampshire or Massachusetts Bay," and further 
that this disaffection had been greatly increased by the 
outlawry enactments of the colonial legislature. The 
resolutions adopted contained provisions for reducing 
quit rents to the same amount reserved in the New 
Hampshire charters. This was, of course, a relief. 
They further provided for the repeal of the acts of 
outlawry. This was of no effect because by their own 
limitation they had expired two years before. They 
further provided that confirmatory grants should be 
made to the settlers under the New Hampshire charters 
upon the payment of small patent fees. This provision 
was however so carefully drawn as to limit this con- 
firmation to such lands as were possessed by the settlers 
at the time the grants of them had been made by New 
York. This provision, if it had been valid, would 
exclude the greater part of the inhabitants on the west 
side of the mountains from its benefits. These resolu- 
tions and the proposals were made known by the 
proclamation of Governor Clinton on the 23rd of 
February, 1778. This proclamation was very plausible 
upon its face and has been regarded by some modern 
writers as a generous offer on the part of New York. 
Colonel Stone, ia his life of Brant, speaks of that 
proclamation as conceived in the most liberal spirit and 
of the resolutions themselves as offering to confirm all 
the titles which had previously been in dispute. Mr. 
B. H. Hall describes them as "such overtures to the 
disaffected inhabitants of the northern counties as were 



138 Vermont Settlers and 

deemed compatible with the dignity of New York as a 
state and with the welfare of those with whom a 
reconciliation was desired." To the settlers themselves 
the dignity of the state of New York was of much less 
importance than that they should be allowed to occupy 
what was in justice their own property. These resolu- 
tions offered no security to the settlers. No principle 
of law is better established than that it is not within 
the power of a state legislature to retake property 
that had previously been legally conveyed by any com- 
petent authority. The New York grants of lands 
covered by the New Hampshire charters had been 
declared valid by the colonial courts and that decision 
had been incorporated into the constitution and organic 
law of the state of New York. It was thus entirely 
out of the power of the New York legislature to con- 
firm any of these New Hampshire grants. 

Shortly after his return from captivity, Ethan 
Allen published a reply to the proclamation of Gov- 
ernor Clinton in which he pointed out in vigorous terms 
the entire insufficiency of these proposals. Had they 
been accepted by the settlers and the government of 
New York established there was no power that could 
have prevented Mr. Duane from recovering the full 
$100,000 worth of property which he claimed under 
those grants and which, according to the memoir already 
referred to, consisted in improvements made by the 
settlers to the value of 192,000 and $8,000 paid 
by him for his claims. Allen's paper contains this 
paragraph : 

"From what has been said on this subject it 
appears that the overtures in the proclamation set 
forth are either romantic or calculated to deceive woods 



New York Land Speculators. 139 

people, who in general will not be supposed to under- 
stand law or the powers of legislative authority." 

It is however undoubtedly true that these plaus- 
ible oflfers did make an impression upon those ' ' woods 
people" and that Allen's vigorous exposition of their 
fallacy was by some of the Vermont parties treated 
lightly because he was himself a land speculator. 
This reply of Allen was published in August and it 
had the effect to draw from the New York legislature 
and Governor Clinton further proposals, among which 
was one declaring that, as each case must be deter- 
mined according to its- particular merits, it was pro- 
posed to submit each case "to such persons as the 
Congress of the United States should select or appoint 
for that purpose"; and it was further proposed that 
those cases should be decided according to equity and 
not according to strict rules of law. This was very 
plausible but entirely ineffectual, because the legislature 
had no power to submit the rights of persons who had 
bought land under titles declared valid by the con- 
stitution of the state, to the arbitration of anybody 
except the regularly appointed tribunals of the state. 
Much less had they power to waive any rights which 
those purchasers had under the rules legally applicable 
to their claims. This second proclamation did not 
seem to have as much inflaence upon the "woods 
people " as the first. 

The organization of the new state of Vermont was 
interrupted by the excitement occasioned by the British 
invasion under General Burgoyne. The affairs of the 
new state were for a time committed to the care of 
what was termed the "council of safety." This council 
was confronted at the outset with a lack of means to 



140 Vermont Settlers axd 

conduct any defensive operations. This difficulty was 
however obviated by a scheme, of which Ira Allen was 
the author, for the confiscation of the property of those 
residents who had declared their adhesion to the royal 
government and had sought protection from the in- 
vading array. So promptly was this plan carried out 
that a regiment was raised and equipped within about 
a month. Although the other states adopted similar 
plans during the Revolutionary War, this was the first 
instance of any such action ; and Allen claimed the 
credit of being the originator of a plan that was after- 
ward generally adopted. When the new state govern- 
ment was organized the sale of confiscated property 
became the principal source of its revenue. Its affairs 
were managed with great economy and these funds 
were sufficient to keep the state finances in good condi- 
tion for several years. 

When this state government was first established 
a very considerable portion of what was then termed 
Cumberland county adhered to the jurisdiction of New 
York. Committees of safety in the interest of New 
York were appointed but they did not have power to 
enforce any of their orders. The town of Guilford 
was then, and remained for many years afterwards, 
the most populous town in Vermont, and although it 
was divided in sentiment the majority was usually 
found to be in favor of the New York jurisdiction ; 
and so at first was the majority of the inhabitants of 
Brattleboro and Halifax and some other towns on that 
side of the mountains. The state government of Ver- 
mont was, however, administered with such energy 
and wisdom as fully asserted its authority, while at the 
same time the punishments for resistance to that au- 



New York Land Specxtlatoks. 141 

thority were not severe. The leaders of the resistance 
were promptly arrested and taught that it was unsafe 
to trifle with the new state government. To all these 
proceedings. Governor Clinton had nothing to oppose 
but proclamations. It would seem that the governors 
of New York, both colonial and state, had taken 
pattern from the example of their illustrious prede- 
cessor, Peter Stuj^vesant, who, according to the Kaick- 
erbocker History, was the discoverer of the art of 
conducting governments by proclamation. 



143 Vermont Settlers and 



CHAPTER XL 

LAND GRANTS BY VERMONT. 

Early in the history of the new state government 
came up the question of the disposition to be made of 
the ungranted lands in the state. Daring the session 
of 1779, the legislature formulated plans for the 
manner of making new grants. They were very much 
like those adopted by Governor Wentworth of New 
Hampshire and were similar to those followed in most of 
the New England states. By these plans were to be form- 
ed townships of about six miles square with the New 
England system of township government, including the 
town meeting. The lands were to be granted in about 
seventy rights in each township, of which five were to 
be public rights, one for the support of a college, one 
for the benefit of a county grammar school, one for an 
english school, one for the first settled minister and 
one for the support of preaching. That would leave 
about sixty-five proprietary rights for each township. 
During that session the legislature disposed of a num- 
ber of townships of land that had never been covered 
by any grants either from New York or New Hamp- 
shire. In disposing of these lands they managed to 
secure as grantees many prominent inhabitants on the 
east side of the mountains and in fact some who had 
been inclined to support the jurisdiction of New York. 



New York Land Speculators. 143 

At the same session Ira Allen was appointed agent of 
the state to visit the legislatures of neighboring states 
and distribute certain pamphlets that had been pre- 
pared in defense of the action of the settlers in orga- 
nizing the new state and justifying their resistance to 
the New York speculators. In addition to these duties 
which were pointed out in the record it appears that he 
was also entrusted with the duty of procuring pur- 
chasers for the vacant lands of the state and furnished 
with blank petitions for distribution among the people 
he should visit. 

As is apparent from the sequel Allen very success- 
fully performed this last duty, for at the October 
session of the legislature for 1780 were found applica- 
tions for grants of new townships upon which were 
issued during that session the charters of about fifty 
towns. In procuring these petitions Allen not only 
found men who would pay the charter fees in hard 
money, but men whose influence would be of great 
value to the new state. In short he managed to put 
those lands "where they would do the most good." 
Among the applications for these new charters were 
found the names of Colonel Timothy Bigelow of Mas- 
sachusetts, to whom was granted the township of 
Montpelier ; Colonel Ebenezer Crafts of the same state, 
to whom was granted the township named for him, 
Craftsbury ; General John Glover of Marblehead, 
Massachusetts, who had been distinguished in the Rev- 
olutionary War, to whom was granted the township of 
Glover; Commodore Abram Whipple, to whom was 
granted the township called Navy, so named in recog- 
nition of the naval services of the grantee in the war ; 
Major Buell of Coventry, Connecticut, to whom was 



144 Vermont Settlers and 

granted the township of Coventry; Major Woodbridge, 
to whom was proposed to be granted the township of 
Woodbridge, but which grant was never perfected ; 
Dr. Arnold of Providence, Rhode Island, who was a 
member of the continental congress, to whom was 
granted the township fir^t named Providence, now 
known as Lynden, and who afterwards became the 
grantee of the neighboring townships of St. Johnsbury 
and Kirby ; and also General William Barton of Prov- 
idence, Rhode I^jland, to whom was granted the town- 
ship now bearing his name. These and other less 
noted names were found among the grantees of those 
fifty townships. A fact worthy of notice in the same 
connection is that none of these applications for grants 
were by "dead heads," but every one making them paid 
or agreed to pay in hard money the charter fees fixed 
by the governor and council. The amount of these 
fees varied in each town. They were usually from 
seven to ten pounds, New England currency, for each 
right ; and, as the rights were supposed to be of about 
three hundred and thirty acres each, the cost of these 
lands would, in round numbers, be about as many 
cents per acre as there were paid pounds granting fees 
for each right. That would make the purchase price 
of the lands from seven to ten cents per acre, which 
was a little less than the charter fees demanded 
by the New York colonial governors. Moreover 
the value of those lands must have increased be- 
tween the time of the colonial grants and the state 
grants, and the state grants were unincumbered with 
any quit rents or reservations of timber for the royal 
navy, which were serious objections to the colonial 
grants. On the other hand these applications were 



New York Land Speculators. 145 

procured during the Revolutionary War when money 
and especially hard money, was very scarce and when the 
title proffered by the state government could not have 
been under the circumstances very good. But every 
additional proprietor that could be found strengthened 
the influence in favor of the new state. General 
Washington in speaking of this fact in a letter written 
two or three years later used this language : 

''They have a very powerful interest in these 
New England states and pursued very politic measures 
to enlarge and increase it long before I had any knowl- 
edge of the matter and before the tendency of it was 
seen into or suspected ; by granting upon very advan- 
tageous terms large tracts of land in which I am borry 
to find the army in some degree have participated." 

There was in those times no keener observer of 
current events nor any man of sharper business sagacity 
than General Washington. The "politic measures" 
referred to were the work of Ira Allen. 



Vermont Settlers and 



CHAPTER XII. 

APPLICATIONS OF VERMONT TO CONGRESS. 

Numerous applications were made to the conti- 
nental congress for the recognition of Vermont as an 
independent state. Of course this was strenuously 
opposed by the New York government ; and the settlers 
again found their old enemy, Duane, in their way. 
The services of the Green Mountain Boys in the Revo- 
lution had made a favorable impression on the country. 
The result was a feeling not only of friendship towards 
the Vermonters but of respect for their prowess. It 
had become apparent that the men who had fought at 
Hubbardton and Bennington were not to be despised 
in any other contests in which they should engage. 
The continental congress was however too weak and 
timid to take any decided action against the protests 
of New York. 

The question of land titles, although not so promi- 
nently named, was really the most serious obstacle to 
the adjustment of the controversy between New York 
and the new state. If the jurisdiction of New York 
was confirmed, then all titles to lands in Vermont 
would be settled by New York courts ; and the settlers 
very well knew how little they had to hope for and 
how much to fear from these courts. If the jurisdic- 
tion of the new state was established, they had reason 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 147 

to expect those titles would be passed upon by courts 
which were, to say the least, not prejudiced against the 
settlers nor hostile to them. During the years 1779 
and 1780 resolutions were passed by congress tend- 
ing to favor the New York claim. In the mean- 
time both New Hampshire and Massachusetts had set 
up claims to the territory of the new state and the 
government of Vermont had got itself into difficulties 
by favoring the applications made by some towns in 
New Hampshire near the Connecticut river and also by 
some towns in New York east of the Hudson river for 
a union with the new state. In September, 1780, a 
hearing was commenced before the continental congress 
in which New York and New Hampshire were ad- 
mitted as parties claimants. Ira Allen and Stephen R. 
Bradley were present in behalf of the new state. 
Finding themselves ignored in the hearing Mr. Allen 
and Mr. Bradley on the 22nd day of September with- 
drew their appearance in a spirited letter giving their 
reasons in detail. 

These applications of the new state for admission 
to the Union and the refusal of congress to accept 
them, as might well be supposed, did not fail to attract 
the attention of the British authorities. The corre- 
spondence of General Haldimand, the governor of 
Canada, with the home government, has been published, 
and shows that, as early as 1778, the Biitish officers 
were carefully watching that action. In 1780 Beverly 
Robinson of New York, a noted royalist or tory as he 
was commonly called, wrote a letter to Ethan Allen, 
proposing negotiations with the view of detaching 
Vermont from the confederacy. No notice was taken 
of this letter which was received by Allen some time 



148 Vermont Settlers and 

during that summer. In the winter of 1781 Mr. Rob- 
inson wrote another letter to Allen. Copies of this 
letter and of the preceding one were forwarded on the 
9 th of March to the president of congress with a letter 
in Allen's characteristic style, asserting that inasmuch 
as congress had rejected their application for a union 
the people of Vermont had a perfect right to negotiate 
with the British or any one else. 

During the summer of 1780 application was made 
to Governor Haldimand for an exchange of prisoners, 
some of the inhabitants of Vermont having been taken 
captives in some forays across the border. Ira Allen 
in his history states that this application was for the 
release of prisoners taken in the raid upon Royalton, 
but as this raid was not made until some months after 
the application of Governor Chittenden, Allen's mem- 
ory was at fault. A flag was received and upon that 
application a truce was arranged between Ethan Allen, 
commanding the Vermont militia, and the British 
troops then holding possession of Lake Champlain. 
Commissioners fur the exchange of prisoners were 
received within the British lines and the British authori- 
ties manifested a very kindly spirit towards the 
Vermont officers. In addition to other business with 
regard to exchange of the prisoners there was undoubt- 
edly a great deal of conversation in respect to a 
proposition to make Vermont an independent British 
province. This negotiation was mainly carried on by 
Ira Allen. He very adioitly declined to commit him- 
self in writing, for the obvious reason that if any such 
writing should fall into other hands than those for 
whom it was intended it would very seriously compro- 
mise him and embarrass the whole negotiation. These 



Neav York Land Speculators. 149 

negotiations were continued until the close of the war. 
It is not the purpose of this paper to enter into a 
detailed discussion of those negotiations or of the 
merits or demerits of the principal actors in them. 
There is an abundance of discussion on this topic. 

The existence of this truce and the sending of 
commissioners for the avowed purpose of exchanging 
prisoners did not escape the attention of the New York 
government. Indeed it is more than probable that it 
was the intention of both the Aliens to conduct that 
business in such a way that it would be discovered by 
the New York authorities. The correspondence of 
General Schuyler and Governor Clinton shows that 
they were aware of these negotiations and were sus- 
picious of what has since been shown were undoubtedly 
the real negotiations. In the meantime General Haldi- 
mand had communicated the facts to the home govern- 
ment, and a letter of Lord George Germaine, colonial 
secretary, to Sir Henry Clinton, was found in a 
captured vessel in which he stated that the return of 
Vermont to the british allegiance was an object of 
great importance and stating that he had given direc- 
tions to General Haldimand to do what he could, etc. 
This letter was published in the Philadelphia papers on 
the 4th of August. It seems to have attracted the 
very decided attention of congress. It is to be remem- 
bered that in the early part of the year 1781 the cause 
of the colonists seemed more hopeless than ever before. 
In order to avert the danger of the defection of Ver- 
mont very prompt measures were taken by congress. 
On the 7th, of August a resolution was passed inviting 
the authorities of Vermont to send their agents to 
confer upon a plan for the admission of Vermont into 



150 Vermont Settlers and 

the confederacy. Accredited agents of Vermont for 
that purpose were very speedily appointed. In fact 
they were ah-eady on hand and the business was con- 
chided by the adoption by congress of a resolution on 
the 20th of August in substance, that if the state of 
Vermont would accept as its boundary the line of 
Connecticut river on the east and that of 20 miles 
east of the Hudson river on the west it should be 
admitted into the confederacy. This was, without 
doubt, exactly the result sought for by the Vermonters 
in those negotiations. 

From all the evidence, taken in connection with 
the acknowledged facts which show what the actual 
interest of the parties was, there can be no doubt that 
the actors in this negotiation as well as the settlers of 
the new state were unanimous in their preference for 
an independent state organization admitted to the con- 
federacy on equal terms with the other states. This 
choice was not concealed in any of the correspondence 
and was perfectly apparent from all t-he facts of which 
the british authorities were keeping such careful watch. 
On the other hand, when it came to be a question 
whether Vermont should be included in the confederacy 
as a part of the state of New YoA' or become an 
independent colony even under the control of the 
british crown, it cannot be denied that the interest of 
most of the active men in this negotiation was against 
the New York jurisdiction. 

The establishment of the jurisdiction of New York 
meant a great deal to those men. It involved the loss 
to them of every piece of property either of them had 
in the world. It appears that eight men besides Allen 
were from the tirst in the secret of Allen's negotiations 



New York Land Speculators. 151 

with Governor Haldimand. This was the statement of 
Governor Chittenden to Mr. Williams in 1793. as 
appears from his history, and is shown by the written 
signature of those men to a paper given to Ira Allen at 
the time. Of these men, six lived in the town of 
Bennington and one in Sunderland. Another was Gov- 
ernor Chittenden who had a temporary home in 
Arlington during the war but whose permanent home 
and property interests were in Williston and Jericho. 
The homes of every one of these Bennington men 
were, with all, their buildings and improvements, either 
actually covered by judgments in ejectment in favor of 
the New York claimants or were liable to be made 
subject to such judgments when the New York juris- 
diction should be established. In that case the claims 
for intervening damages for their occupation of the 
property would sweep away all their personal estate 
and leave them penniless. No quieting act of the New 
York legislature could have saved their homes to these 
men because if the New York claimants had acquired a 
valid title to those lands no legislative enactment could • 
take it away from them. Notwithstanding the specious 
pretenses of Governor Clinton's proclamation, there 
was no safety for those men of Bennington against the 
claims of the land jobbers. There was no pretense in 
that proclamation of any construction that would save 
to Governor Chittenden his property in Williston and 
Jericho. Mr. Brownson, the other one of the eight 
men named, had a home within the limits of Prince- 
town grant, of which, as we have seen, Mr. Duane was 
a large owner. There was nothing in that proclamation 
or the resolutions of the New York legislature which 
pretended to give protection to the Aliens in their 



153 ' Vermont Setti.ers and 

large property interests which have ah'eady been de- 
scribed. Of this fact both the Aliens had a perfect 
appreciation. They knew very veell that the re estab- 
lishment of the New York jurisdiction would effect not 
only their own utter financial ruin but that of all the 
other settlers on the west side of the mountains. 

On the other hand they had good reason to believe 
that when the matter came properly before the english 
tribunals for adjudication the New Hampshire titles 
would be sustained. That was the opinion freely 
given out by the members of the priv^ council in 
July, 1767. The correspondence of Lord Shelburne, 
Lord Hillsborough and Lord Dartmouth already quoted 
indicated the same opinion. The report of the board 
of trade in 1772 and the action of the privy council 
upon it was to the same effect. The Aliens were both 
perfectly familiar with all these expressions of opinion. 
They had made large reference to them in the pamph- 
lets they published in defence of the Vermont claims. 
Not only the Aliens but in fact all of the Bennington 
settlers had the strongest personal interest which any- 
body could have in the defeat of the New York juris- 
diction. That question involved everything which any 
of them had in the world. 

None of the writers who have discussed the Haldi- 
mand negotiations and the conduct of the Vermonters 
seem to have appreciated this fact. When learned 
men sil in their libraries and write disquisitions on the 
duty of good cijtizens to be patriotic and supi)ort the 
authorities whicb control their homes, the situation has 
a very different aspect to them from that presented to 
citizens who find themselves called on to support 
authority which they know will deprive them of any 



New York Land Specui-ators. 153 

home and make them exiles and outlaws, and that too 
in despite of the acknowledojed injustice of that pro- 
cedure. Patriotism consists maialy in the attachment 
to and the defence of one's home. When that home is 
unjustly taken from a man there is but little left of 
patriotic duty. The Vermonters owed nothincr to the 
continental congress. Then* applications had uniformly 
been neglected or refused ; and so far as the congress 
had given any expression of intention up to the time of 
these Haldimand negotiations, it had been of an inten- 
tion to sustain the New York jurisdiction. 

There can be no doubt that Ethan Allen was 
entirely sincere when he wrote to the president of 
congress on the ninth of March that, rather than submit 
to the jurisdiction of New York, he would retire with 
the Green Mountain Boys to the mountains and wage 
continual warfare against their oppressors. 

The establishment of British authority over Ver- 
mont would have left the condition of the settlers very 
much like that of the people in the eastern townships 
of Canada. This condition while not to be preferred 
to that of the present people of Vermont was one that 
would give reasonable assurance of protection to pri- 
vate rights. The settlers could not have this assurance 
under the jurisdiction of New York. 

In those days adhesion to the british authority did 
not necessarily involve the moral turpitude that now 
attaches to the name of tory. Some of the best men 
of the settlement were conscientiously in favor of 
english rule. Mr. James Breakenridge was a worthy 
citizen and yet he was more than suspected of adhesion 
to the Briti.«^h claims. There was no more exemplary 
citizen in the whole extent of the new state than 



154 Vermont Settlers and 

Jehiel Hawley of ArliDgton and yet he was an avowed 
royalist. 

Early in 1781 when the prospects of the colonists 
seemed very doubtful there was a decided disposition 
on the part of some of the best citizens of New York 
to yield the contest with the New Hampshire grants 
rather than endanger the interests of the whole country 
by the continuation of that dispute. Among these 
were General Schuyler and Chancellor Livingston. 
Accordingly a resolution was presented to that legis- 
lature consenting to the formation of an independent 
state of Vermont with the boundary on a line twenty 
miles east of the Hudson river. This resolution was 
favored by Chancellor Livingston although his family 
had been largely interested in those New York grants. 
It passed the senate by nearly a unanimous vote ; 
and on a test vote in the house it appeared that more 
than two to one were in favor of its adoption. At 
this stage Governor Clinton interfered with the threat 
that, unless that measure was abandoned, he would 
prorogue the session, as under the constitution he had 
power to do. As there was other business of impor- 
tance for that session, the legislature yielded. From 
that time, however, opposition to the state of Vermont 
rapidly faded away. That government enforced its 
order by vigorous although not very harsh measures 
and many of the leading supporters of the New York 
interests, like Judge Knowlton of Newfane and Micah 
Townsend of Brattleboro, finding further resistance 
would be worse than useless, gave their adhesion to the 
new state and were Jrom that time among its most 
earnest supporters. 

The surrender of Lord Cornwallis, in October, 



New York Land Speculators. 155 

1781, very materially changed the outlook for the 
American colonies. From that time the success of the 
revolution became assured and the continental con- 
gress, being no longer pressed by the fear of a British 
diversion in Vermont, was in no haste to fulfill the 
promise it had made to the Vermont agents in the 
previous August. Complications about the balance of 
power between the north and the south began to arise 
and at the same time the interest of the claimants of 
the Vermont lands under the New York titles again 
asserted its influence. At a session of the Vermont 
legislature held in October it refused to comply with 
the conditions named by congress, but at another 
session in the winter following it retracted that refusal 
and accepted all the conditions of the resolution of 
congress passed August 20th ; and the excuse of the 
enemies of Vermont was that the new state, having at 
first rejected the offer of congress, could not afterwards 
by a retraction of that rejection claim anything under 
that promise. Whether this was a valid excuse or not 
is now immaterial. At all events the continental 
congress persisted in its refusal to admit the new state 
and passed resolutions threatening to enforce its orders 
unless the rulers of the new state yielded. 

On November 14, 1781, Governor Chittenden 
wrote a long letter to General Washington in relation 
to the situation of the state and the causes which had 
induced the negotiations with the governor of Canada. 
That was a remarkable letter both in respect to what 
was stated ia it and what was not stated, and, though 
not entirely correct in its grammar and not without 
fault in its style, it was very adroitly written. With- 
out in terms admitting anything, it justified all that 



156 Vermont Settleks and 

was claimed and all that was in fact true about those 
negotiations. It set forth plainly the defenseless con- 
dition cf Vermont with its extended frontier on the 
lake entirely exposed to invasion by the British forces 
in Canada, and stated that it had been abandoned by 
congress and that while it was building forts and earth- 
works for its own protection the continental officers 
had left not even a pick-ax or &^pade for its use. The 
letter proceeds to note the refusal of congress to recog- 
nize the new state and claims upon this abandonment 
the right to negotiate for its own protection. 

The authorship of this letter has been attributed 
to Ira Allen and this is undoubtedly correct. Although 
the style of the writings of Ira Allen was less extrava- 
gant than ihat of his brother Ethan, this letter shows 
evidence of having been tempered by the cool judgment 
of Governor Chittenden. Inasmuch as Ethan Allen 
had forwarded the Robinson letters to the president of 
congress in March and Governor Chittenden had writ- 
ten to General Washington in November of the same 
year and all the proceedings had been so conducted as 
to have attracted the attention of the New York 
officers as well as those of the continental congress, it 
cannot be claimed that there was much concealment 
about the Haldimand negotiations. 

In the following winter General Washington wrote 
a conciliatory reply to Governor Chittenden's letter 
advising compliance with the offers of congress and 
encouraging the expectation that upon that compliance 
the new state would be admitted to the union. The 
disposition of congress had however changed. 

In December, 1782, congress passed resolutions in 
respect to the conduct of the government of the new 



New Yohk Land Speculators. 157 

state, commanding it to make restitution to some of 
the New York officials who had been convicted under 
the state laws for treasonable practices against the 
Vermont government. In those resolutions congress 
declared its purpose to enforce compliance with that 
demand. To those resolutions Governor Chittenden, 
by direction of his council, forwarded a very prompt 
and spirited reply, in which he plainly denied the 
jurisdiction of congress to interfere with the state 
administration ; and, while he did not in terms refuse 
to obey the mandates of congress, he stated that a 
question so important ought not to be determined 
without consideration by the state legislature which 
was expected to be in session in the following February. 
This reply was not only forwarded to congress but 
printed copies were distributed to (jeneral Washington 
and others in the army. 

Those resolutions and the evident intention of the 
■ Vermonters to disobey them gave General Washington 
great anxiety, as well it might. He wrote a very 
plain letter to a personal friend of his in congress 
calling attention to the situation and to the fact that 
the attempt to enforce these threats by the use of his 
army would be very dangerous if not disastrous. In 
that letter he used this language : 

"It is not a trifling force that will subdue them, 
even supposing they derived no aid from the enemy in 
Canada. * * The country is very mountainous, 
full of defiles, and exceedingly strong. The inhabi- 
tants for the most part are a hardy race, composed of 
that kind of people who are best calculated for soldiers; 
in truth who are soldiers, for many, many hundreds of 
them are deserters from this army, who having acquired 
property there would be desperate in defense of it." 



158 Vermont Setti-eks and 

This letter further calls attention to the fact that 
the settlers in Vermont were almost entirely New Eng- 
land men and had the sympathy of New England 
states and further that his army was mainly composed 
of soldiers from New England and while he had not 
dared to take measures to ascertain the actual feeling 
of the soldiers towards such an enterprise he deemed it 
unwise to force any issue of that kind. To this letter 
the general received a reply that he need have no fears 
that congress would undertake to enforce its threats by 
the use of his army. The reply further stated that a 
peculiar state of things produced the act of congress of 
August, 1781, and a change of circumstances after- 
wards dictated the delay in coming to a determination 
on the questions involved. 



New York Land Speculators. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AN INCIDENT. 

Near the close of the Revokitionary war an inci- 
dent occurred wHich, although not strictly within the 
purpose of this paper, was yet so connected with the 
principal actors of those times as to have some interest 
in this connection. This was the attempt by the conti- 
nental authorities to arrest Colonel Wells of Brattleboro 
and Judge Knowlton of Newfane for engaging in 
forwarding correspondence between Governor Haldi- 
mand in Canada and Sir Henry Clinton in New York. 
The Haldimand correspondence shows that it was 
difficult to get communication between those two de- 
partments of the British service. Communication by 
sailing vessels around north by the way of the St. 
Lawrence was difficult and liable to be interrupted by 
privateers. Communication overland was dangerous 
because the territory to be traversed was largely in 
control of the continental troops. Beside other agree- 
ments made by Ira Allen in those negotiations was one 
that the new state would permit the transmission of 
dispatches through its territory. This was expressly 
stated by him in his history. As we have seen, Colonel 
Wells of Brattleboro was a personal friend of many of 
the leading loyalists in New York city and one of the 
letters in the Haldimand correspondence states that 



160 Vermont Settlers and 

Colonel Wells had sent his son-in law to New York 
with offers of assistance in conducting that correspond- 
ence. Judge Knowlton had been associated with 
Colonel Wells in the affairs of Cumberland county 
while it was under the New York jurisdiction. He 
had adhered to the New York party until it became 
evident that there was no use in further adhesion, upon 
which he had become interested in the new state and an 
officer under its jurisdiction. It is said that in 1780, 
while he was in attendance at Philadelphia upon the 
continental congress in the interest of New York, he 
became acquainted with Ira Allen and a warm personal 
friendship had grown up between them which con- 
tinued during his whole life. Correspondence was for 
some time carried on between Canada and New York 
with the aid of Knowlton and Wells. Messengers 
would come from Canada to Newfane and their mes- 
sages would be transferred to Brattleboro where further 
messengers were provided by Colonel Wells. Late in 
the year 1782 one of the messengers of Colonel Wells 
was detected in Rhode Island on his way to New York. 
The continental authorities reported the facts to con- 
gress and means were taken to secure the arrest of 
both Wells and Knowlton. An officer was sent from 
Albany with a company or perhaps a detail of men to 
go to Brattleboro and make the arrest. When the 
officer with his command reached Brattleboro he found 
both Wells and Kuowlton had escaped. It has since 
transpired, and was stated by Ira Allen in his history, 
that Colonel Wells having notice of what was going on 
had started for the british lines. This was in January, 
1788. On his journey he stopped for the night in the 
mountains at the place of Captain Otley in Bromley, 



Nkw York Land Speculators. 161 

now Peru. While he was at supper the captain with 
the force from Albany that had been sent for his 
capture stopped at the same place. The captain made 
no secret of his errand but as we may be assured Wells 
did not disclose his identity. He waited until morning 
when the loud mouthed captain had departed and then 
found bis way to the house of Ethan Allen in Sunder- 
land He was aided by the Aliens in his escape. 
When it became known that Knowlton and Wells had 
escaped there was great commotion in the continental 
congress and one of its members was accused of having 
forwarded information to them of their intended arrest. 
The man so accused was Dr. Arnold, member from 
Rhode Island. He denied it and no evidence was 
produced against him. He was, however, well known 
to be friendly to the new state, both in congress 
and out of it. Shortly after the war he came to 
Vermont and became the founder of what is now the 
town of St. Johnsbury. Very early he became a 
member of the Vermont council and for several years 
his name appears in the rolls of that body next to that 
of Luke Knowlton of Newfane. There was, however, 
no great reason to suspect anybody of giving clandes- 
tine information of the proceedings which resulted in 
the attempt to arrest those men. The whole affair was 
managed in a very bungling manner. 

This was of itself sufficient to give warning to men 
much less acute than either Wells or Knowlton were 
that it was time for them to retire. They remained 
within the british lines until the conclusion of peace in 
the following summer. For their six or eight months 
banishment they both managed to get from England 
a very handsome compensation. In fact it was pecun- 



162 Vermont Settleks axd 

iarily about the best year's work either of them ever 
did. Wells got a grant of land in the eastern 
townships of Canada sufficient to give 1200 acres to 
each of his eleven children, and it was located on some 
of the best lands in the townships. Knowlton got 
a grant of probably an equal amount of land, which is 
still held by descendants bearing his name. In the 
county of Brome in Canada the little hamlet which is 
the county seat still bears the name of Knowlton. 
In that village the principal house, an establishment of 
manorial character, is or was a few years ago still held by 
the de.-cendants of Luke Knowlton, who held high 
position among their neighbors and in the provincial 
government. 

It is interesting to note the history of that man. 
He was the most adroit man in the whole history -of 
the new state. In 1772 he was interested in the New 
Hampshire grant of Newfane. Before he put himself 
within the power of the New York government by 
making settlements or spending his money on improve- 
ments he went to New York and made application for 
a continnatory charter. He reached New York in the 
winter following the failure of Sheriff Ten E_) ck with 
his great posse from Albany to get possession of the 
Bennington lands, just at the time when Ethan Allen 
and his Green Mountain Boys were at the height of 
their defiance of the New York authorities and doing 
lawless acts which Governor Tryon was utterly power- 
less to prevent. At that time no speculator could be 
found with hardihood enough to purchase a claim 
against the settlers on the New Hampshire grants, and 
Governor, Tryon was forced either to lose his fees 
entirely or accept such terms as were offered him. Mr. 



New York Land Speculatoks. 163 

Knowlton was altogether too bright a man not to be 
aware of the situation and he was not bashful in avail- 
ing himself of it. He got his new charter and in it he 
secured all of the franchises in the New Hampshire 
charter; in fact it was a copy of Governor Wentworth's 
charter. It gave the settlers all the advantages they 
had before, including the New England town meeting 
and the small quit rent. He undoubtedly was able to 
secure a very considerable reduction from the usual 
fees for such re-charters, but naturally, if such reduc- 
tion was made, the provincial authorities would be 
very careful that it should not appear upon the records. 
Knowlton himself settled in Xewfane. At its organ- 
ization he was made the town clerk, and for fifty-nine 
out of sixty following years either he or some member 
of his family was continued in that office. In the 
organization of Cumberland county he was counted as 
an adherent of the existing government, but took no 
very prominent part in its management. He was a 
member of the Cumberland council of safety for a year 
or two; was sent in 1780 to Philadelphia to present the 
claims of the New York authorities to the continental 
congress. While he was there he became acquainted 
with Ira Allen, who represented the state government 
of Vermont, and a personal friendship sprung up be- 
tween them which was never broken. When it became 
apparent that the New York claims were only main- 
tained by a small minority of the state and the obstinacy 
of the governor, he gave his adhesion to the state 
government. He had during Governor Try on 's ad- 
ministration received a grant of five thousand acres of 
land in Franklin county, near the town of Fletcher, as 
it is described. When he was obliged to leave the 



164 Vermont Settleks and 

state in January, 1783, the records of the governor and 
council show that a person was appointed justice of the 
peace in Windom county in place of Knowlton, who 
had left the state. The town records show that another 
man was elected town clerk in his place. In 1784 he 
was re-elected and also elected to the Vermont legis- 
lature. They show that he took a very prominent 
part in the legislature and was a member of some of 
the most important committees. Within a year or two 
he was elected a member of the council and judge of the 
supreme court of the state for one year. He was for 
many years chief judge of the co\irt for Windom 
county. When the controversy between New York 
and Vermont was finally adjusted by the payment of 
$30,000 by Vermont for the satisfaction of the New 
York claims he got his dividend on the five thousand 
acres of land in Franklin county. 

He got through the governor and council of 
Vermont a grant of ten thousand acres of land under 
the name of Knowlton's Gore, probably covering his 
New York grant, for which he paid the usual fee of 
130 pounds and 19 shillings. He sold that land within 
a month to Joseph Baker for 500 pounds lawful money, 
and upon his own motion in the council the name was 
changed from Knowlton's Gore to Bakerstield, which is 
still retained. It was no ordinary pian that had the 
address to obtain land grants from three hostile govern- 
ments; and yet during all these transactions he retained 
the confidence of his neighbors, and there was no 
imputation upon his integrity. His descendants have 
occupied high positions not only in Canada but in the 
United States. 



New York Land Speculators. 165 

A grandson of Judge Knowlton still survives in 
Windham county. He has held the highest offices of 
his state and has well deserved its highest honors. 
He is the last survivor of the war governors of Ver- 
mont and many sons of that state have a kindly respect 
for Frederick Hoi brook. 



Vermont Settlers and 



CHAPTER XIV. 

AN INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTY. 

The close of the Revolutionary war found the new 
state of Vermont in the exercise of all the functions of 
an independent sovereignty. It employed organized 
forces to defend the state against foreign invasion and 
to enforce the judgments of its courts against such of 
its settlers as refused to respect its jurisdiction. It 
appropriated the public lands within its borders and 
sold them for the benefit of the state. It raised other 
revenues by the sale of lands confiscated from the 
enemies of the government as well as by taxation in the 
ordinary course. It had established courts of justice 
and enforced their mandates by the aid of military 
power, when necessary. It established a postoffice 
department with mail routes and postoffices. It con- 
ducted negotiations with foreign countries. Very soon 
after the close of the war it provided for the coinage of 
money. By legislation it adopted a code of laws, 
making provision for the enforcement of contracts and 
original provisions for relief against the harsh doctrines 
of common law liabilities. 

During the latter part of the Revolutionary war 

the new state had attracted th'e attention of settlers 

and its population had grown very steadily. In 1771 

n enumeration was had of the inhabitants on the east 



New York Land Speculators. 167 

side of the mountains. From that census and an 
estimate of the population on the west side the whole 
number of inhabitants was about 7,000. From esti- 
mates made in 1781 that population had increased to 
about 30,000. By the enumeration of 1791 it was 
shown that the population had increased to between 
85,000 and 86,000. 

Among the causes for this rapid increase of in- 
habitants was the vigor of the state administration, 
which gave ample assurance for the protection of pri- 
vate rights. Another cause was the light burdens of 
taxation. The affairs of the state were managed with 
great economy and the revenues from the sales of land 
were nearly sufficient to pay the whole expenses. 
While the neighboring states were laboring under 
hfeavy burdens of debt caused by the Kevolutionary 
war, Vermont had, by the refusal of congress to recog- 
nize the new state, become exempt from any of those 
burdens. On this account after the close of the war 
the new state was not at all anxious for admission into 
the confederacy. After the disbandment of the conti- 
nental army there was no ground for fearing any 
attempt by New York to enforce its jurisdiction. In 
fact the Vermont settlers continued to have the sym- 
pathy of the people of New York. 

The growth of the new state had opened fields for 
men of the learned professions. Among those who 
came soon after tHe establishment of the new state 
government were two Connecticut men, who were des- 
tined to become very important factors in the establish- 
ment of the civil polity of the state. These men were 
Stephen Eow Bradley, who settled at Westminster in 
1779, and Nathaniel Chipman, who about the same 



168 Vermont Settlers and 

time carae to Tinmouth. Both these men were gradu- 
ates of Yale College, Bradley in the class of 1775 and 
Chipman two years later. They were both lawyers 
educated for the bar in Connecticut and both at once 
took high rank in their profession. Mr. Bradley was 
made colonel of a militia regiment and afterwards 
brigadier general ; and after the organization of the 
state government he was for fourteen years one of its 
senators in congress. Mr. Chipman was judge of the 
supreme court, United States senator and chief justice 
of the supreme court of the state. He was the most 
active man in procuring the adjustment of the diffi- 
culties with New York and, on that account, has 
in this paper been included among the four men 
from Salisbury who had the most to do with the 
establishment of the new state. Another man edu- 
cated for the same profession was Micah Townsend 
of Brattleboro. He was a native of Long Inland 
and was educated at Princeton, where he giaduated 
in 1766. He was then admitted to the bar of the 
state of New York, where he continued in his 
practice until the breaking out of the Revolutionaiy 
war in which he served for a time. He located at 
Brattleboro and married a daughter of Colonel Wells. 
There he naturally at once took sides with the New 
York party in Cumberland county until about 1780 
when, finding that further resistance to the new state 
government would be worse than useless, he accepted 
the situation as he found it and became a useful mem- 
ber of the Vermont government. There were other 
lawyers among the new settlers in Vermont. Most of 
these had come from Connecticut. Judge Chipman 
and Mr. Townsend were appointed commissioners to 



New York Land Speculators. 169 

revise the statutes of the new state. As the leading 
lawyers and a large portion of the inhabitants of the 
state were from Conaecticut it was very natural that 
ihe statutes of Vermont should be largely copied from 
those of that state. By this legislation prominence 
was given to the township organization as the unit of 
municipal corporations as distinguished from the 
county organizations of some other states. The New 
England town meeting was preserved with all its char- 
acteristics. 

During this period was enacted a statute which 
was then a novelty in English and American legislation, 
but which has since been copied in different forms by 
many of the states in the Union and is now recognized 
as eminently just and a necessary amelioration of the 
common law. That was the statute which was and still 
is known in Vermont as the "betterment act" and in 
some other states is now designated as the ' ' occupying 
claimants" law. By the common law in all actions of 
ejectment the prevailing party recovered the lands in 
dispute with all the improvements made upon them by 
the defendant without regard to any question of the 
justice or the injustice of the forfeiture of such im- 
provements. The case of the Bennington settlers 
furnitehed a very marked illustration of the injustice of 
that rule. Those settlers had bought their lands of the 
king through his agent, who at the time of that pur- 
chase had possession and control of the lands conveyed. 
At the time of their purchase they had no reason to 
question the authority of the agents of the king to make 
the conveyances under which they held. Relying upon 
these grants purporting to come from the sovereign 
authority these settlers had improved their lands and 



170 Vermont Settlers and 

most of them had invested their all in these new homes. 
The greed with which the New York speculators had 
sought grants of these improved lands for the sake of 
the profits to be got by the forfeiture of those improve- 
ments was a very notable feature in that contest. In 
the early history of the state there had been, in the 
absence of any system of registry of deeds, numerous 
instances of purchase by settlers who had been deceived 
in the character of the titles they got. These unjust 
results attracted the attention of Governor Chittenden 
and through his exertions was procured the enactment 
of the laws in consideration. The first of these was 
passed in 1781. In 1784 a revision was made of these 
laws and the form of relief to be given by them was 
submitted to a committee of which Mr. Bradley and 
Mr. Chipman were members; and the result was that in 
1785 a law was enacted which has been in substance 
retained to this day and has become the precedent for 
similar enactments in most of the other states of the 
Union. The substance of that law is that where the 
purchasers of lands have in good faith and relying 
upon the title they bought improved the property they 
purchased, they cannot be ejected without allowance of 
compensation for the increased value of the lands occa- 
sioned by those improvements. The rulers of that new 
state are entitled to the credit of being the originators 
of this very necessary legislation. 

During the same period the courts of the state 
made a departure from the usual rules in the matter of 
tax titles, which in later years they were forced to re- 
tract, and the result was that large tracts of lands passed 
on tax sales which would not now be considered regular. 
Among those sales were most of the townships of 



New York Land Speculatoks. 171 

Georgia and S wanton, which had been purchased by 
Levi Allen. This man was the brother of Ethan and 
Ira Allen, but had been a tory during the Revolutionary 
war. Confiscation proceedings had been commenced 
against him at the instance of his brother Ira. After 
the close of the war tax titles were taken to these lands 
by Ira Allen. As those tax deeds were witnessed by 
Nathaniel Chipman and Levi Allen himself, it would 
seem that the principal purpose of those tax sales was 
to relieve the lands of the cloud upon the title caused 
b}'^ the confiscation proceedings. Among these tax 
titles it is said there were several which cat off some of 
Governor Went worth's claims to the tive hundred acre 
tracts he had reserved to himself as "governor's rights" 
in the New Hampshire charters. 

The history of those later times is largely taken 
up with an account of the forlorn resistance made to the 
state government by the adherents of New York resid- 
ing mainly in the townships of Guilford, Halifax and 
Marlboro, which was finally overcome in the winter of 
1784. Among those who experienced the severest 
effects of that resistance was Charles Phelps, of Marl- 
boro, a man in whose character was found the strangest 
compound of both the heroic and ridiculous elements. 
That story has, however, little to do with the dispute 
between the settlers and the New York claimants. 



Vermont Settlers and 



CHAPTER XV. 

FINAL SETTLEMENT WITH NEW YORK. 

la October, 1789, there had come the twentieth 
anniversary of the commencement of forcible resistance 
to the New York speculators by the Vermont settlers. 
During these twenty years great changes had been 
wrought. The New Hampshire grants had increased 
in population more than tenfold. A new nation was 
being formed in the place of the colonies which during 
that interval had asserted and established their inde- 
pendence of the British crown. A new state had been 
formed by the people of these New Hampshire grants. 

During this period many of the prominent actors 
in the contest had passed away. Ethan Allen had died 
in the winter previous. Heman Allen had died of a 
decline caused by his exposure in the battle of Benning- 
ton. Remember Baker had been killed in one of the 
first engagements of the Revolutionary war. Zimri 
Allen had also died; and of all the members of the 
Onion River Company Ira Allen was the only survivor. 
Seth Warner after an honorable service in the war had 
with broken health returned to the home of his boy- 
hood, where he, too, had died in 1784. The men of 
Bennington who had commenced that contest had many 
of them passed away. The Rev. Jedediah Dewey, 
their pastor and leader, had died in 1778. Robert 



New Yokk Land Speculators. 173 

Cochran had removed from the state. Of the men on 
the other side of this contest death had claimed a hirsje 
number. Governor Golden had died early in the 
Revolutionary war. Crean Brush and C )lonel Wells, 
who had been the members from Cumberland county 
of the New York assembly which had passed those 
notable acts of outlawry, were both dead. Attorney- 
General Kempe had been banished and his estate con- 
fiscated because he was a tory. Governors Dunmore 
and Tryon had been driven out of the country. Of the 
men who had manifested the most bitterness against 
the resistance of the settlers, Governor Clinton, who 
had been chairman of the committee to make the report 
upon which were based those acts of outlawry, still 
survived and was unrelenting in his bitterness. Of the 
men who had sought to make their fortunes by ap- 
propriating the farms of the settlers, jNIr. Daane was 
still the leader, although he had recently been induced 
to turn over the active management of his claims to a 
younger man. 

During that month of October, 1789, there had 
come to the legislature of Vermont overtures for the 
settlement of this long subsisting controversy. These 
overtures had come from the legislature of New York. 
In the change those twenty years had wrought it had 
come to pass that New York was more anxious for this 
settlement than was Vermont. It was time for a 
settlement. The best men of the country were then 
organizing a national government. The continuance of 
the contest between New York and Vermont was a 
very serious obstacle in the way of the development of 
the new nation. Of this fact the best men in New 
York were becoming more and more convinced. Such 



174 Vermont Settlers and 

men were Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Chancellor 
Livingston and General Schuyler. The only thing in 
the way of that settlement was the interest of the New 
York claimants to the Vermont lands. Even those 
claimants had come to appreciate, what so many specu- 
lators have found to be true, that, in the language 
of the late Daniel Drew, "speculation is a resky 
business." 

This suspicion of the uncertainties of speculation 
must have been very much intensified by the result of 
the action of the state of Massachusetts against New 
York, which had been brought in the federal court in 
1784 for the recovery of lands claimed by Massachu- 
setts under its royal charter. To this action the state 
of New York had made its answer and Mr. Daane had 
been employed as its counsel and had filed an elaborate 
brief which is set forth in the collections of the New 
York Historical Society. The defence against this 
claim of Massachusetts rested on substantially the same 
grounds as the claim to the territory of the New 
Hampshire grants. Indeed were it not for the fact 
that in those collections it is stated that this brief was 
used against the claim of Massachusetts it might easily 
have been supposed thai the paper there published was 
one of the numerous papers Mr. Duane had filed in the 
Vermont controversy. His claim was based upon the 
allegations of the Dutch claim to the Connecticut river 
as its eastern boundary and the St. Lawrence as the 
northern boundary of the dutch province of New York 
upon the grants of Charles II to his brother the Duke 
of York. From those papers it appears that General 
Hamilton was associated with Mr. Duane as counsel. 
It is easy to imagine how unsatisfactory were these 



New York Land fSPECuLATORS. 175 

grounds of defense to a good lawyer like General 
Hamilton. The claim of dutch occupancy had no sup- 
port in fact and the claim of title under the grant to 
the Duke of York which had become "merged" but 
was still subsisting must have been incomprehensible. 
At all events the authorities of New York after full 
consideration of Mr. Duane's defense deemed it unwise 
to rest their case upon it and so made haste to settle 
the adverse claim. In that settlement they conceded to 
Massachusetts nearly six million of acres of the best 
lands in the state, which was then the largest recovery 
in any action that had ever been brought in America. 
If that defense was not good as against the Massa- 
chusetts claim, which had no equities in its support, 
the speculators might naturally infer that it would be 
at least doubtful as against the claims of the Vermont 
settlers, especially as in the latter case it had been 
expressly conceded that all the equities were in favor 
of the settlers. 

In the winter of 1782 the legislature of New York 
passed an act which by its terms did all that any legis- 
lative enactment could do to confirm all the New Hamp- 
shire charters. By that enactment the titles of all the 
settlers in the state, except those whose lands were 
covered by the New York grants were fully confirmed. 
It would not be a confirmation of the title to the town- 
ship of Hinsdale, but that title was good without con- 
firmation and must have been so held even by the New 
York courts. Had that action been taken ten years 
earlier it would have had some effect. It very likely 
would have prevented the creation of the new state and 
perhaps would have postponed, although no human 
power could have prevented, the American Revolution. 



176 Vermont Settlers and 

Coming at the time it did this action of the New York 
legislature made no impression even upon the "woods 
people." The people of Cumberland county who 
would have been most benefited by that confirmation 
had by the "politic measures" of the new state become 
too much interested in land grants from that state to 
be willing to favor the New York jurisdiction. In 
1787 the attorney of the New York claimants com- 
plained that the settlers had taken no notice of this 
legislation. 

Numerous attempts were made in the New York 
assembly to procure the consent of that state to the 
independence of Vermont and its admission to the 
continental union. In 1787 a bill to that effect was 
pending before the legislature. To this bill the land 
claimants objected and appeared by their attorney, 
Richard Harrison, and had a hearing before the as- 
sembly. The arguments of that counsel and the speech 
of General Hamilton in reply are preserved among the 
Hamilton papers. Mr. Harrison's argument was not 
based upon the stereotyped claims of Mr. Duane about 
the grant to the Duke of York and the extent of the 
dutch province. It is evident that the claimants 
had become doubtful of the strength of those argu- 
ments. His claim was based upon the state constitution 
of New York which had declared the New Hampshire 
grants to be included within that state. He objected 
to the acknowledgment of the independence of Ver- 
mont because it would deprive his clients of their 
property. In this respect his argument was not sound 
because the independence of Vermont would only affect 
the tribunal before which they should seek their 
remedy and not the rights they claimed. It had been 



JNeav Youk Land Speculators. 177 

urged that by the confederation a tribimal had been 
provideil for in the federal court named in that confed- 
eration. To this Mr. Harrison objected that it was 
doubtful whether such court wouM have jurisdiction 
and urged especially that its prt)ceedings were too 
expensive to be invoked by any private citizens. This 
came with ill grace from the represeatative of Mr. 
Duane who, in 1774, had found fault with the Vermont 
settlers because they had made forcible resistance 
instead of taking an appeal to the privy council of 
England. That privy council was the most expensive 
tribunal on earth and a fee of a thousand guineas was 
the ordinary compensation of lawyers who would nat- 
urally be entrusted with such cases. General Hauiilton 
made a very pertinent reply to this question of expense 
by stating that it would be much cheaper to try the 
rights of those claimants in the federal court than it 
would be to undertake to conquer Vermont by military 
force. In fact the real objection of the claimants to a 
federal court was that they had become very much 
convinced that the federal court would decide against 
them on the validity of the New Hamp-hire titles. Mr. 
Harrison's argument contains a paragra()h which un- 
doubtedly expressed the real feeling of his clieuts : 

''In the present situation of things, whilst the 
independence of Vermont is not acknowledged by this 
state while some of the inhabitants of that district 
have trielr hopes and others iheir ap{)rehensions that 
they may again be reduced to the obedience which ihey 
owe this government, many, if not all, of them, are 
solicitous to secure a good and pernianent title for their 
possession by purchasing from the petitioners their 
rights under the state of Nevv York." 

This was undo'ubtedly the real policy of the New 



178 Vermont Settlers and 

York speculators, — to keep the question of titles so 
unsettled that the people of Vermont could by a kind 
of blackmailing process be forced to pay something for 
the extinguishment of those claims. The reply of 
General Hamilton to this position was a plain statement 
of the situation as it then existed. He stated that 
Vermont was in fact severed from New York and had 
been so for years ; that there was no reasonable pros- 
pect of recovering possession of it and the attempt to 
accomplish that recovery would be attended with cer- 
tain and serious consequences. 

It is to be remembered that New York was not 
then the "Empire" state it now is. Mr. Hamilton 
stated that the population of New York was not much 
more than double that of Vermont ; that there was a 
great difference between a defensive and an offensive 
campaign where the defense was aided by the natural 
strength of the country. Mr. Hamilton further stated: 

"No assistance is to be expected from our neigh- 
bors. Their opinion of the origin of the controversy 
between this state and the people of Vermont whether 
well or ill founded is not generally in our favor." 

The arguments of General Hamilton prevailed be- 
fore the assembly but the objectors managed to kill the 
bill in the senate. Two years later a similar bill was 
presented upon petition of John Jay and numerous 
other well known citizens of New York, many of whom 
were interested as claimants under the New York 
grants of the Vermont lands. That bill passed the 
assembly by a vote of 40 to 11, but was again defeated 
in the senate. 

In the naeantime the people of Vermont were still 
pursuing their "politic measures " to increase their 



New York Land Specluatkos. 179 

strength by the use of their land grants. They had 
granted to John Jay fourteen thousand acres in the 
township which still bears his name. They granted to 
Samuel Avery several tracts of land which are still 
designated as Avery's Gores and other lands now a 
part of the township of Troy. They had granted to 
John Kelly the township of Kellyvale, now Lowell. 
They had made grants in which it appears that Gov- 
ernor Clinton himself was interested. They had also 
granted the town of Johnson to a company of which 
William Samuel Johnson was a member. Mr. Johnson 
was a relative of Governor Chittenden. His father 
had been president of Columbia College, a position 
which he himself afterwards occupied. He had been 
the agent of Connecticut, and, as has already been seen, 
had rendered great assistance to Captain Kobinson in 
his application to the privy council. 

While these politic measures had undoubtedly 
produced a very strong effect in strengthening the 
position of the new state, they had been opposed by 
some, among whom was Judge Chipman. In 1780, at 
the time of the adoption of the policy of granting 
lands, the legislature upon the report of a committee 
to consider that question adopted a resolution indicating 
that any grants of the New York government after the 
prohibition of the king forbidding such grants should 
be considered as objections to new grants of the same 
lands to even deserving applicants. This conclusion 
was undoubtedly correct because the title of the lands 
being in the king all charters and conveyances of those 
lands must be made in the name of the king by his 
agents. Upon the elementary principles of the law of 
agency after the revocation of authority no valid con- 



180 Vermont Settlers and 

veyances can be made by such agents, but at that time 
it seemed to be a strange thing that the proprietary 
title of public lands should be held by any other 
authority than that having legislative jurisdiction over 
the same territory. Accordingly the determination 
that the state of Massachusetts owned lands within the 
territory of New York was a novelty, and so was the 
conclusion that the state of Connecticut owned lands 
within the Western Reserve in Ohio. In our time 
such titles held by the United States government are 
very familiar and the investigation of questions arising 
out of such proprietary ownership are matters of daily 
experience to lawyers in the western states. Even 
Judge Chipman failed to appreciate this particular 
feature of the law, and in a letter to Alexander Ham- 
ilton admitted that it was the general understanding 
that where the Vermont grants of lands Conflicted with 
prior grants under the New York authority the title of 
the New York grants would be sustained. In the case 
of Jacob vs. Smead his ruling was to the effect that 
while the title under the New Hampshire charter was 
good, still after the surrender of that charter a good 
title came from the regrant by the government of New 
York. Mr, B. H. Hall speaks of Judge Chipman's 
opinion that the New York title would be preferred to 
the Vermont title as if it referred to the title under the 
New Hampshire charters. This is incorrect, as will be 
seen from a careful examination of Judge Chipman's 
letter and from his opinion in the case referred to. 
Holding this opinion Judge Chipman was naturally 
very anxious to procure an adjustment of the difficulty 
and so took the initiative in opening a correspondence 
with General Hamilton which led to the final settle- 



New York Land Speculatoks. 181 

ment. The result was, that in the summer of 1789 a 
bill was passed by the New York legislature proposing 
the appointment of commissioners to meet other com- 
missioners to be selected by Vermont to agree on 
the terms of a settlement ; and at the October session 
of the Vermont legislature of the same year a copy of 
this bill was presented to the Vermont legislature 
■ which was met by the passage of a similar bill appoint- 
ing on the part of Vermont Isaac Tichenor, Stephen R. 
Bradley, Nathaniel Chipman, Elijah Paine, Ira Allen, 
Stephen Jacob, and Israel Smith, commissioners on the 
part of Vermont. This bill was sent by the house 
of representatives to the governor and council for their 
concurrence on the 19th of October, 1789, the anni- 
versary of the date of the first forcible resistance to 
the New York claims. After the usual amount of. pre- 
liminary negotiations it was finally agreed that if the 
state of Vermont would pay $30,000 on or before the 
first day of June, 1794, 

"All rights and titles to lands within the state of 
Vermont under grants from the late colony of New 
York or from the state of New York, should cease." 

The only grants excepted were such as had been 
made in confirmation of former grants under New 
Hampshire. This action of the commissioners of the 
two states was ratified by the legislatures ; and the 
money was paid and accepted by the claimants. 

None of the claimants to those lands ever at- 
tempted to assert any title as against this settlement. 
If their titles had been good they had the undoubted 
right to have their claims tried either in the state 
courts of Vermont or in the United States courts, but 
none of these claimants ever chose to do so. Conse- 



182 Vermont Setti,ei{s and 

quently this contest of twenty years' duration was 
finally settled. 

Steps were at once taken for the admission of the 
new state into the Union; and on the 18th of Feb- 
ruary, 1791, an act was passed by congress providing 
that on the 4th of March following " the said state, by 
the name and style of the State of Vermont, shall be 
received into this union as a new and entire member of 
the United States of America. " 



New York Land Specui-atoks. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CONCLUSION. 

The long contest between the settlers and the 
speculators resulted in a victory for the settlers and in 
the establishment of a new state. Now after a lapse of 
more than a hundred years there are still many people, 
not only in Vermont but elsewhere, who are glad of 
this result and are proud of that victory. 

The credit for this fortunate result must be 
given, in the first instance, to the men of Bennington 
who commenced that contest against great odds. They 
were not aggressors. They simply insisted on holding 
what was their own both in law and in justice, and 
their resistance was to what they deemed the imjust 
decisions of the authorities set over them. Not least 
among these men of Bennington must be counted the 
sturdy pastor of their church. When the people of 
Vermont shall learn fully to appreciate the men to 
whom they are indebted for the independence of their 
state they will come to respect the memory of the 
Reverend Jedediah Dewey. 

The men of Bennington, however, could not have 
prevailed in their contest without the assistance of 
other men. They needed a bold and resolute leader. 
Such a man they found in Ethan Allen. He was not 
only a bold and valiant champion in the tight but a 



184 Vermont Settlers and 

vigorous and successful advocate of the settlers with 
his pen. He wrote and published numerous articles 
defending^ them ao;ainst the claims of Mr. Duane and 
his associates and it cannot be denied that his argu- 
ments have stood the test of time better than those of 
more learned men. His stjde was objected to as being 
unpolished and rough. His composition showed, how- 
ever, that he had something to sa}' and that that some- 
thing was exactly pertinent to the subject of his 
writing, and he managed to express his ideas in clear 
and forcible language. With these merits the defects 
of his style may be easily forgiven. 

There was another man without whom the state of 
Vermont could not have maintained its existence. 
That man was Thomas CLiittenden, the first governor. 
He too was one of the men from Salisbury. Born in 
Guilford, Connecticut, in 1730, his family moved to 
Salisbury in his childhood, and upon arriving at man- 
hood he became a leading inhabitant of the town, 
representing it in the colonial assembly for several 
years and being advanced to tbe position of colonel in 
the state militia. When he was forty-four years of 
age he moved to Williston where he became the owner 
of extensive tracts of valuable land. With the possible 
exception of Dr. Arnold of St. Johns bury, it is prob- 
able that he brought more property into the state than 
any other of its early settlers. Although uncultivated 
and with very meagre education and small knowledge 
of books, he naturally had a strong mind and good judg- 
ment and possessed the faculty of discovering the 
merits of questions presented to him without being 
embarrassed by technical rules. He was for nearly 
twenty years the governor of the state, andwas wise and 



New York Land Speculators. 1 85 

prudent in his administration. Without his wise 
counsels, which served as reguhitors to the energy of 
the Aliens, it is not at all probable that the state could 
have overcome the opposition it encountered. 

Another of the men from Salisbury was Ira Allen. 
He early became interested in the state organization, 
and to his fertility of resources and skill the new state 
was many times indebted for its extrication from diffi- 
culties that seemed insurmountable. He was the orig- 
inator of most of the measures taken by the state to 
strengthen its position. While it cannot be denied 
that some of the measures dictated by his policy were 
more acute than wise, he was in the main successful. 
He too was a writer. His papers, as they have been 
preserved, show rare skill and force for a man of his 
age and opportunities for culture. He had a faculty 
of saying well what was best to be said, and that other 
equally rare faculty of not saying whatever the circum- 
stances of the case required to be left unsaid. A 
measure of the capacity of Ira Allen as a writer can be 
found by a comparison of his writings with those of 
General Bradley. These men were nearly of the same 
age. Both employed their pens in defense of the new 
state. Bradley had the benefit of the best culture the 
times afforded. He was a graduate of Yale College 
and studied law under Tapping Reeve, who was then 
the best tutor for young lawyers in the country and 
who has hardly been excelled in later times. General 
Bradley was a man of natural power of intellect and, 
while in the United States senate, he was a leader of the 
party that supported the democratic administration 
and among the foremost, if not the foremost, member 
of that senate. Ira Allen had few advantages of early 



186 Vermont Settlers and 

education. He was graduated in the woods as a sur- 
veyor, in which employment he had entered while a 
boy in his teens. Yet his writings compare very 
favorabl}^ with those of his associate who was more 
favored in education and culture. Most assuredly the 
state of Vermont owes its existence to the labors of 
Ira Allen, and the story of the misfortunes of his 
later years cannot fail to awaken the sympathy of the 
friends of that state. 

There was another man from Salisbury, and he 
was born there. That man was Nathaniel Chipman, a 
little younger than Ira Allen and a little older than 
General Bradley, After serving in the continental 
army he came to Vermont and, as has been seen, was 
largely instrumental in bringing about the final settle- 
ment with New York. While it can in no sense be 
said that the state owes its existence to Judge Chipman, 
it is true that his labors hastened the settlement of its 
difficulties and its final establishment as a member of 
the Union. 

Of these four men the little town of Salisbury has 
reason to be proud. That town and the county of 
Litchfield furnished other men who gained well deserv- 
ed fame by their valuable services to the new state. 

So far as the establishment of the new state 
effected a separation from New York it undoubtedly 
promoted the best interests of all concerned. The 
settlers of Vermont were almost exclusively New Eng- 
land people imbued with the purely democratic pecul- 
iarities of that section. They were a people among 
whom " the hired man" was the peer of his employer. 
They knew no aristocracy except such as a man was able 
to earn for himself. There was great contrast between 



New York Land Speculators. 18 7 

the manners of these people and those of the people of 
New York. Governor Golden in the extract quoted in the 
first part of this article very clearly stated the difference 
between these two communities. To illustrate this dis- 
tinction we need only to recall the two governors of the 
new states. Governor Chittenden was a plain man who 
kept a country tavern and with his own hands per- 
formed the most menial services of his farm. Governor 
Clinton was a man of fortune, of family, an aristocrat 
by birth and by practice. 

To have forced a political union of such divergent 
elements would have been a continual source of bicker- 
ings and contention. There was at that time no love 
among the New Yorkers for the yankees. This dislike 
is apparent in the literature of New York during the 
period next following the adjustment of these diffi- 
culties. That dislike is very manifest in the writings 
of that heartiest of haters, Fennimore Cooper, and crops 
out even in those of the genial Washington Irving. 

At first it would seem to be a matter of regret 
that the two states of New Hampshire and Vermont 
were separated. For many reasons one strong state 
would have seemed preferable to two small ones. Still, 
there is a larger sense in which the separation of 
Vermont and New Hampshire was not a matter of 
regret but of congratulation. By that separation and 
out of the contest which ensued, there was brought 
about among the Vermont settlers a development of 
character and a discipline which has given to the 
people of that little state a standing of which they 
and their descendants are justly proud. That resolute 
energy and fearless assertion of their own rights which 
was developed in that contest, has brought forth fruits 



Veksiont Settlers. 



in the present times, and from that development has 
come that which makes us, her sons, whether at home 
or in distant lands, most glad to remember that we 
are still Green Mountain Boys. 



